Time and Peter Joyce
by Ceres Wunderkind
Summary: Peter Joyce, the clockmaker's boy, returns to Oxford where he once studied alethiometry with Professor Lyra Belacqua. But Lyra is dead now, and Peter's old master is sick, and there is something very wrong with Time...
1. I Return to Oxford

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Time and Peter Joyce

Copyright © 2003 Ceres Wunderkind

_Previously..._

This tale is the latest in an ongoing sequence of stories set in the years after the end of _The Amber Spyglass_. Those stories follow the fortunes of Will Parry and Lyra Belacqua, together with those of a number of other characters from our world, Lyra's world and the world of Cittagazze. Among those characters is Peter Joyce who, when he first appeared in _The Clockmaker's Boy_, was fifteen years old and an apprentice at the firm of James and James, makers of clocks and instruments in Lyra's Oxford. Peter met Lyra, who was in her mid-forties at the time, and was taken on by her as a student of alethiometry. However, Lyra died only two years later, possibly as a result of the horrific nightmares visited upon her by her half-sister Elizabeth Boreal. Elizabeth herself was found dead, presumed drowned, off the west coast of Eire two or three months afterwards. Now read on...

_Webster was much possessed by death  
And saw the skull beneath the skin;  
And breastless creatures under ground  
Leaned backward with a lipless grin. _

Daffodil bulbs instead of balls  
Stared from the sockets of the eyes!  
He knew that thought clings round dead limbs  
Tightening its lust and luxuries. 

Donne, I suppose, was such another  
Who found no substitute for sense,  
To seize and clutch and penetrate;  
Expert beyond experience, 

He knew the anguish of the marrow  
The ague of the skeleton;  
No contact possible to flesh  
Allayed the fever of the bone. 

Thomas Stearns Eliot - _Whispers of Immortality_

I Return to Oxford 

'You all right there, son?'

I looked up. 'Yes, thank you Goodsir.'

'You were in dreamland.' My questioner was a middle-aged man, wearing a brown suit and bowler hat. He could have been a farmer, or a country doctor.

'Pull the flapper down, won't you, son. They're ringing the bell.'

I'd completely missed hearing it, preoccupied as I was with the news I had received that morning. Hanging down by the side of the window was a green cord with a brass handle attached to its end. I reached up with my right hand, tugged hard on the handle and with a creak the orange flapper flag which was fixed to the outside of the railway carriage was pulled down into its socket, indicating to the guard who was standing on the platform that all the passengers in our compartment were safely aboard; luggage, children, daemons and all.

'Thanks, son.' My travelling companion settled back in his seat, opened his briefcase and extracted from it a squishy packet of what I assumed to be sandwiches, and a copy of the _West Bromwich Gazette_. There were just two of us in the compartment, which had six seats.

'Hungry?' The man pointed to the packet.

'Thank you, Goodsir, but I had lunch before I left.'

'Just as you like.' He opened the newssheet and his osprey-daemon settled on the cushion of the seat next to him. My own Viola snuggled herself in my lap. With a repeated shout of 'All Clear!' from the platform and furious whistle-blowing from the locomotive at the head of the train we pulled slowly out of Brummagen New Street station. I was going back to Oxford.

Back home in a way; although home – where my parents lived and where I was brought up – was by the Grand Junction canal in the small town of Tring. But Oxford, where I came when I was thirteen, with Viola only just settled, was the place where I felt most at home now. It was, after all, the place where I had grown up.

What I mean is this: I came to Oxford as a boy, thinking I knew everything and, in reality, filled with the most profound ignorance. Only four years later, standing by the Professor's grave in the Botanic Garden by Magdalen Bridge, I had changed beyond anything I would have thought possible. Changed by experience; by sorrow, excitement and joy. I had seen so much, done so much, that was very far beyond the realm of what we call everyday life…

The train was gathering speed now. The rhythmic click-clack of the wheels on the joints in the track, the fields and houses streaking past the windows, the gentle sway of the carriage as the line curved to the left or the right, all served to lull me into a doze. I should be careful, I knew, or I would fall asleep and wake up when we had passed my destination by many long miles.

'Remember, Peter,' said Viola. 'It's good to remember.' And as the steam and smoke streamed over the top of our rushing carriage, occasionally dipping to brush against the window and temporarily obscure the view, I remembered…

I remembered the first time I walked up the hill from Oxford station, feeling lost and anxious, holding tightly onto my kitbag, which my mother had packed for me the night before and firmly warned me never to let go of (I had wrapped my hand around its straps in the train). I had stopped halfway up Park End Street and tugged at the sleeve of a passing pedestrian – of course he was in a hurry, these were city folk – and asked him how I could get to Shoe Lane. The man had looked impatient and annoyed at first, but his face had softened when he saw how close I was to crying, and he had taken my free hand and led me up the street to the Cornmarket, and thence to Shoe Lane. 'Thank you Goodsir,' I'd said, remembering my manners, and he had saluted me, wished me Godspeed, and returned to his business, leaving me standing at the junction of the Cornmarket and Shoe Lane, outside the Talbot Inn.

'You'll find it down there, young sir,' he had said. I never knew the name of my guide, or that of his raven-daemon, but he was the first kindly stranger I had met, out all-alone as I was, and I resolved that I would try to pass his kindness on to others if I could.

That was where I'd had to go – down Shoe Lane, past the dressmaker's and the bookbinder's and the haberdasher's and the locksmith's and the potter's and the ironmonger's; looking for the sign of the hourglass and the place where I was to begin my apprenticeship and start the never-ending job of making a place for Viola and myself in this busy world of ours.

I'd set off down the narrow street, peering into the windows of the shops, one after another, looking for the place I sought. I'd passed shop after shop and was beginning to wonder if I'd missed it when there had been the painted hourglass, and there the double-fronted shop with its new plate-glass windows and gilt-lettered inscription over the door – _James and James, Fine Clocks and Instruments_. I'd pushed open the door – the bell fixed above it jingling merrily – and stood at the counter.

'Yes?' the sallow-faced man behind the counter had said, looking down at me out of the side of his face as if I were a very small and insignificant object which, indeed, I felt myself to be.

'Please, sir, are you Master James?'

'Who wants to know?'

'Me, sir. Peter Joyce and Viola.'

'And who might you be, Peter Joyce and Viola?' The man's rabbit-daemon sat on the counter, sniffling and playing with her paws.

'Please, sir, I'm the new apprentice.'

'Oh, are you?'

'So are you Master James?' I sincerely hoped that he was not. I had taken an instant dislike to this pale thin young man, with his high shoulders and slantwise way of looking at me.

'No. I'm Elias Cholmondley. That's _Mister_ Cholmondley to you, boy. Wait here, and don't touch anything. Anything goes missing or gets broken, you're for the high jump.'

Mister Cholmondley had turned and pushed through a door at the back of the shop. I stood absolutely still, afraid to move in case I damaged any of the clocks, watches and barometers which flashed and gleamed in the cabinets which stood, splendid in polished mahogany and glass, against the walls.

The back door had opened again, and a mild-faced man in early middle age had emerged from the mysterious darkness beyond, taking off his pince-nez and wiping his forehead with a white cotton handkerchief, for the weather was warm that day.

'Peter, I'm pleased to meet you. I am Master James, and this is Amanda.'

I'd bowed. 'Good afternoon, Master. Greetings, Amanda. This is Viola.' Viola and ocelot-formed Amanda had regarded one another briefly, each taking the measure of the other.

'Come along then. Duck under the counter, there you go.' I'd got down on my hands and knees and crawled under the counter, pulling my kitbag behind me and followed Master James into the room on the other side of the door, which was his workshop and a place of endless wonder and fascination to me from that day on.

I've told the story before of my life as an apprentice at James and James. I wrote it all down, called it _The Tale of the Clockmaker's Boy_, and my friend Jim read it through for me in his usual sceptical, inquiring manner. He didn't believe half of it, and he didn't think much of the style in which I wrote it, but he helped me with it just the same. I looked at it often, even now when it was several years later, and I was no longer a mere apprentice in Oxford but a full-made journeyman-craftsman working at Moore's in Brummagem.

How strange a time that was! Magical, you might say. Magical indeed, I would insist, for things happened to me then that could only be magic, or something that could not be distinguished from magic. Often it did not seem real, and it was only the fact that I'd written it all down; all about Arthur Shire and the _Maggie_, and the Boreal Foundation and the Gobblers, and the Professor, that made me sure that those things had happened in reality, and were not merely fantasies I had dreamed up in an idle moment. Oh yes, the dreams. I still remembered the dreams and even now – now that I knew that they had been sent to me as a form of torture and revenge – I could not shake off their effect completely. For did not my dreams reflect the image of my soul? I could not look at my beautiful Viola and believe that to be true – the nightmares had been so hideous – but I knew that they would not have been sent to me, or resonated so strongly with my spirit, if they did not recognise and exploit the dark side of my innermost nature. They were a form of education, I knew, but the lessons they taught me were bitter, and hard to swallow.

Those were the burdens I carried from that time (but I would have it no other way). One other thing I had, a legacy from those times when I was growing up. It was a gift beyond my power to receive, so I held it as a trust against the time when I, or another, would be able to use it as it was meant to be used. It was an object infinitely precious to me; not only for its intrinsic value – which could not be measured in pounds, shillings and pence – but also for the memories it awoke in me whenever I took it out and examined it. It was with me now, as the train hissed and grated its way into Oxford station and I roused myself, gathered up Viola and pulled my ancient battered kitbag down from the rack above my head.

What would he have thought, that stolid respectable man who sat reading his 'sheet opposite me, as I got out of the carriage and stood on the platform of Oxford station, if he had known what an extraordinary thing I had in my pocket? I caught sight of him as I pulled down the flapper flag (it had gone up automatically when I opened the carriage door) – he was still engrossed in his newssheet. I raised a hand in farewell, and he politely nodded back to me.

I will never know what he would have thought; although I can guess that he would have been astonished and perhaps slightly outraged that I could walk so apparently casually down the platform towards the ticket barrier as if there were no such thing as a thief in all the world (but I knew a thief, and he was a good man). In my jacket pocket, wrapped in its velvet pouch of dark blue, lay the greatest treasure in all the world, so far as I was concerned. It was the Professor's – _Lyra's _– alethiometer, and its cool weight bumped reassuringly against my thigh as I walked, as I had done all those years before, up Park End Street towards the Cornmarket, and Shoe Lane, and James and James. What, I wondered, would I find there?

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Author's Note

It's been nearly a year since I wrote, in _A Gift of Love_ (also posted on FF.NET), that I didn't know what would happen to Peter Joyce or his girlfriend Jane, or to Lyra's alethiometer. I've looked back at that story, and _The Clockmaker's Boy_, a few times since and decided that I'm still rather fond of Peter – plain, ordinary, straightforward, optimistic Peter – and that it would be pleasant (for me at least) to find out a little bit more about his story, if I could. There were a number of loose ends left behind which, although I don't think they need to be tied up, could be used as a way into further adventures for Peter and Viola.

I realise that this is hard on new readers who may not know all the background to this tale and so I'll do what I can to fill in the gaps as I go along.

CW


	2. I Visit the Botanic Garden

I Visit the Botanic Garden 

_With drooping wings ye cupids come,  
And scatter roses on her tomb.  
Soft and gentle was her heart,  
Keep here your watch and never part._

Nahum Tate - _Dido and Aeneas_

I reached the top of Park End Street and stopped for a moment. Should I go directly to Shoe Lane or would it be better to take a roundabout route? 'Go there now. They need you,' said Viola from her place on my shoulder, but I hesitated. If what Carrie had told me in her letter was even half-true then yes, I was needed at James and James right away. But somehow, now that I was only half a mile from the shop, I found that I needed more time.

'No,' I told Viola. 'We'll go somewhere else first.' She knew where I meant.

It was the same as ever, of course. I knew it would be – the Master of Jordan was an influential figure and used to getting his way. He had a sense of duty too, and had promised, so they said, to honour the commitment which his predecessors had made. And so, as I reached the lower end of the High Street by Magdalen Bridge and walked through the gates of the Botanic Garden I knew that I would find what I sought, kept safe from all change or decay. A tree, a bench and near to it, set in the ground, a granite plaque whose inscription I still could not read, even though five years had passed since it was first placed there, without feeling the tears starting in my eyes:

Near this place lie the mortal remains of  
LYRA BELACQUA MA D.LITT DD D.ALETH  
and  
PANTALAIMON  
1985 – 2032

The wording could have been no plainer. No Roman verse or epitaph, no celebratory lines or eulogy would have served any better, I knew, to express our loss.

To my great relief the bench was free, so I sat down and was quiet for a time. I linked my hands and Viola sat in them, gazing up into my eyes. I wanted to be alone and so I, selfishly I know, put my kitbag down next to me so that the bench was completely occupied. Around us the trees and bushes moved gently to and fro in the warm breeze which wafted from the south-west; driven up from the Atlantic Ocean and over the hills and fields of Brytain.

After ten minutes or maybe more, my spirits refreshed, I freed my hands. Viola leapt onto the bench and climbed a little way up the trunk of the tree behind us. Perhaps she was looking for more of the grey squirrels whose form she had taken. I took Carrie's letter, whose arrival that morning had sent me on my way to Oxford, out of my pocket and read it over again:

Dear Peter,

I did not think I shud write to you but Jim said I shud so here it is.

Dear Peter, there is truble at Master's shop and I am afraid that it is going too be bad. Master is terible poorly, he had been bad these last months but now it is much worse. It is breaking my Hart to see him lying so ill. I said to him Shall I call Peter to come back to us but He said no, Peter has to live his own life and cant be doing with old crocks like me and he said no. The shop is all going to rack and ruin and Mistress is looking so sad.

And now they say there is no money to pay my Wages because of Business being Very Bad, which it is and I have to go away so I spake to Jim and he say that Master is wrong and that you must come and help us. I am at Jim's house now, we are very Poor but we woud Love to see You if you woud com and See us.

Pleease come when you can, we are all very sad and upset here.

Youre Loving Carrie 

'Why didn't she write before, silly girl?' I thought Adrian or she would have had more sense than to let matters slide for so long before getting in touch with me.

Viola spoke comfortingly. 'She didn't want to take you away from your work. She was thinking of your future. So was Master.'

'I know.' But I had applied the same test that morning that I always used, when I was faced with a hard choice. _What would Lyra have done?_ The answer that that question was perfectly obvious, so I went to Goodsir Moore's office and explained to him that I had to go away for a few days' unpaid leave to help a friend in trouble. His face darkened at that news, for we had a lot of work on hand and he did not want to slow down production. I showed him Carrie's letter, and when he saw that it was Master James whom I was going to aid he gave me his blessing.

'There's no man in the Guild of Temporalists more respected than your old master, Peter. You must go and see what you can do to help him. We'll keep your place ready for you until you feel able to return to us.'

I rose to my feet and picked up my kitbag, slinging it over my shoulder. As Viola and I walked away from the bench I saw that a small group of children had gathered by Lyra's plaque, shepherded by a stiff-backed lady with her grey hair tied in a bun, wearing a blue skirt and jacket over a white blouse. For a moment I felt faint with confused recollection: Miss Morley! But it was not her, of course. How could it be? Miss Morley, Elizabeth Boreal's most trusted lieutenant, was dead. Many times dead.

I've called this story _Time and Peter Joyce_, because I have long known that Time and I have a special relationship. I am not sure, even now, that I am living in my proper place in Time; or Space either for that matter. It is as if, ever since I made my journey to the world of Will Parry, and Judy and John Parry, and Mary Malone, I have become detached – just a little – from the Time-Stream down which the flow of worldly events passes. I live, I know, in more than one universe of Time; there are some in which I am dead, and many others in which I still live. I saw Miss Morley die in one world – and I died there too, I suspect – but I seemed to awake in another in which I was not dead and where she had died several days previously.

How could I be sure that the world I inhabited now was not a further world in which she _did_ live, accompanied by a housecat trained to behave like a daemon and still travelling to and from my world and hers by means of the Dust of murdered children?

Only this – that Lyra was dead, and remained so. I would have known it straight away, I am convinced, if I had gone to sleep in a world where she had died, and woken up in another world where she yet lived; just as I had felt it – as a blade sunk deep in my heart – the very moment that she was taken away from me, five years previously. To find her again; living, breathing, speaking! It was the one thing I desired most, and the one thing which I knew would forever be denied to me.

Out of the gates of the Botanic Garden, back up the High and right at St Aldates, and I was in the Cornmarket which was busy with afternoon shoppers and schoolchildren released from their studies for the rest of the day. Should I go into the Talbot Inn for a minute or two and gather up some Doytch courage in a glass of whiskey?

'No,' said Viola firmly. 'You can't put it off any longer.'

No, I couldn't, so I took my kitbag and, hoisting it up once more, I walked slowly down Shoe Lane towards my master's shop.


	3. I Speak to Mister Cholmondley

__

I Speak to Mister Cholmondley

Gobsmacked was the only word that fit. John Parry taught it to me in Bristol and I was so struck by its absolute _rightness_ that I use it more often than I should, bearing in mind that nobody else living in this world has ever heard it.

That was what I felt, as I stood outside James and James that Monday afternoon. Just totally gobsmacked.

You'll have gathered, I expect, that Master James knew his business. Not only the making and repairing of clocks and instruments, but also the running of the shop. You'll remember what I said about how the shop first impressed itself upon me, all those years ago when I was just a boy; how everything there was polished and sparkling and clean. That was certainly not the case now. Just looking at the outside of the premises was enough to put you off going inside, especially if you were thinking of spending over a hundred pounds on a fine quality clock. For a start, the windows were smeared with dirt – I could see a spider's web in one corner. By the look of the dust and mud plastered on the door and windowsills nobody had bothered to wash down the outside paintwork for weeks. I was appalled – that had been my job when I was an apprentice and I'd always done it properly, even though it was a nasty, mucky business. Even worse, there was a bag of rubbish standing just inside the doorway. Any customer who wished to enter the shop would have to push past it, risking soiling his clothes. I didn't know what was inside the bag and I didn't want to find out, either.

'Carrie's better off out of this,' Viola said. 'Come on Peter, let's go in.'

Reluctantly I pushed at the handle of the door and it opened with a creak of badly oiled hinges. The inside of the shop was, if that were possible, even worse than the outside. I stopped and stood in the middle of the floor, looking around me, my mouth hanging open in disbelief.

Everywhere there was neglect and decay. The display cabinets were dull with accumulated grime. Two of them were damaged; their panes had cracked and splintered and one seemed to have no glass in it at all. An eighteenth-century long case clock by the door – it had always been there – stood silent and motionless. Nobody had raised its weights for months, I expected. The maroon carpet was matted with trodden-in filth and more cobwebs festooned the corners of the ceiling. I don't suppose that I've had my heart broken any more than anyone else of my age, but I could feel it breaking all over again as I regarded the shabby interior of the shop, with its musty smell and clouded yellow light, and compared it with the beauty and order which had been the rule in the days when I had worked there.

Nobody cared about the place any more; that was clear to me. I stepped up to the counter – the till had stuck and was indicating a sale of 3/11d – and pressed on the bell-push. Nothing happened, perhaps the cord had broken, so I shouted 'Hello! Anybody in?'

There was no reply. Nothing. No sound. Oh heavens… There was no sound at all, anywhere. No gongs, no chimes, no bells. No ticking. _No ticking_. This was the best clockmaker's in Oxford and there was not a single movement running in the whole place, so far as I could hear. Even the irregular rhythm of an off-beat movement (which is anathema to a clockmaker) would have been better than that dreadful dead silence. I don't think I know how to tell you how badly it affected Viola and me.

I called out again. 'Hello? Shop?' Still no response, so I ducked under the counter as I had all those years before when I was a boy and opened the door behind it. The passage was bare and dusty. I could see no light behind the glass partition that lit the workshop beyond, so I did not go in there. Truth be told, I didn't think that I could stand to see the place in the state that I knew it would be in. Not yet, anyway.

Was there anybody in the house? The kitchen was quiet but, putting my hand over the stove, I detected some residual heat rising from it. It had been lit, then, some time in the last day or two, so the place could not be completely deserted yet. I climbed the stairs to the first floor, where Master's office and the family's sitting and dining rooms were. The office was empty too, just as I expected. So was the dining room, whose dusty table and tarnished silverware told a story with which I was becoming all too familiar. That left the sitting room. I opened the door slowly. This was a room to which I had been admitted only rarely when I was an apprentice, and I retained some awe of it still.

I didn't see the man to start with. He was slouched in one of the Parker-Knoll armchairs of which Mistress was so proud (she never let me use them), facing the dead fireplace. What caught my attention first was the sight of the lamps glowing orange on top of Master's wireless set and the tiny sound of a distant voice, speaking from London, or Hilversum, or Adelaide. I dropped my bag, strode across the Persian-carpeted floor and wrenched the headphone lead from its socket on the front of the set. Elias Cholmondley opened his eyes.

'Eh? What?'

I could scarcely speak, I was so angry. 'What are you doing here? That's Master's wireless! Who said you could use it? Why aren't you minding the shop?'

Elias Cholmondley took the headset off with defiant slowness. 'Well, look!' He was talking to his daemon.' It's Peter Joyce.' He yawned. 'Peter Bloody Joyce. What's brought you back from the dead, Peter Joyce?'

Viola was counting up to ten on my behalf. I took a deep breath. 'Get out of that chair now!'

Elias Cholmondley pretended to consider whether to obey my command. With a languid air he looked around the room and then slowly stood up. 'Dam' programme was getting boring, anyway. Might as well do something else.' I noticed that there was a yellow-jacketed book on a table by the side of the chair. I bent down and picked it up. One glance was enough to tell me what sort of book it was. Elias Cholmondley affected not to notice.

'You going to make us a cup of chai, then, boy?' he said. I so very nearly flared up and struck him then. Oh Viola, where would I be without you? 

'No, Mister Cholmondley. _You_ are going to make us a cup of tea. And you can use this,' I indicated the novel he had been reading, 'to light the stove with.'

Master James was in hospital, in the Radcliffe Infirmary. The outlook was not good. Mistress was visiting him that afternoon and would be back later. Their daughter Emily was staying with her Aunt Maureen in Northampton until… until she had to leave. Each piece of bad news was delivered with something approaching relish by Elias Cholmondley as we sat in the kitchen sipping the tea he had reluctantly made. I was beginning to get over the shock of discovering the state to which the James' circumstances had deteriorated and was thinking about what needed to be done to keep things ticking over until Master could take charge of it again.

I could not allow myself to believe that Master would not return to the shop. My throat seemed to swell up inside and choke me when I thought of it.

'Right,' I said, putting down my teacup and standing up with a scrape of chair-legs on the floor. 'Cholmondley, shut the shop, get a duster and start cleaning the display cabinets. Work your way down from the upper shelves, then get some Glitto from the cupboard under the counter and polish up the glass. I'll start on the paintwork outside.'

Elias stared at me. 'What?'

'You and I are going to get this place sorted out, starting with the shop. There's a lot of cleaning up needs doing.' 

'Oh yes? And just who are you to be telling me what to do, boy? Who died and left you in charge?'

I did hit him then; a savage right-handed blow to the point of the jaw. He was knocked off his chair with the force of it, and rolled over on the floor, clutching at his mouth. Red blood seeped between his fingers, to my intense satisfaction. He staggered to his feet.

'You little toe-rag. I'm going to see to you, see if I don't!' He swung ineffectually at me with his left arm. I dodged away easily.

'Oh yes?' Elias spat blood. 'Scared, are we?' He advanced towards me across the kitchen floor. There were kitchen knives resting on the sideboard to his left.

'Peter, no!'

'Don't worry, Viola,' I said. 'He can't hurt us.'

'Can't I?' Elias snatched up a ten-inch long carving knife. 'Can't I just, boy?'

The situation was getting out of hand. I either had to grab a weapon and fight, or run away. Both choices would lead down fatal paths. Our enmity was too old for either of us to back down now. Hell! Why had I been so stupid as to strike the odious little rat? I backed up to the wall, Elias slowly approaching me, holding the carving-knife, point uppermost, in his right hand. He slashed suddenly at the air in front of my face. I could not help flinching, and the back of my head knocked against the wall behind it, stunning me, so that my eyes briefly lost their focus.

Elias Cholmondley grinned – a monkey-grin such as I had seen in my very worst nightmares of him. He slashed at the air again, closer this time, then again, and at last I snapped out of the shocked trance I was in, and countered him, forcing his arm down and knocking his hand hard against the vegetable rack. The knife fell, and clattered to the stone floor of the kitchen. We stood, faces six inches apart, breathing heavily, each considering what he should do next. One of us, I knew would try to pick up the knife; and that would lead to murder. The only question was: who would be the murderer, and who the victim? Elias moved suddenly – quick as a snake – and I blocked him once more.

'Go on. Take it and kill me – if you can, boy.' Elias' breath was full in my nostrils. He had been drinking Master's sherry, I could tell.

It was a stand-off. If one of us ducked down for the knife, the other could easily push him to the ground. Who would move first, Elias Cholmondley or me? We had to do something – the situation was intolerable. The seconds ticked silently by. What would we decide?

The decision was taken out of our hands for the time being. The passageway door opened with a bang and a figure appeared in silhouette, centred in the frame.

'What is going on in here? Mister Cholmondley, Mister Joyce, will you explain yourselves, please?'

I had never been so glad to see Mistress James in all my life.


	4. I Go to the Radcliffe Infirmary

_I Go to the Radcliffe Infirmary_

_I know death hath ten thousand several doors  
For men to take their exits_

John Webster – _The Duchess of Malfi_

Mistress James took charge immediately. 'Mister Cholmondley, to the shop if you please.' Elias left, with a last venomous glare in my direction

'Now, Mister Joyce. Follow me.' She led the way upstairs to the sitting room and sat down, with her starling-daemon perched on the arm of the chair next to her.. I remained standing.

'Have you been in here? In this room?'

'Yes, Mistress. I can explain…'

'Explanations will not be necessary. What brings you here from Bromwicham?' Mistress James was the only person I knew who used the proper pronunciation and spelling for my new home town of Brummagem.

'I heard that Master James was ill and there was trouble…' My voice trailed away.

'Who told you that?' Mistress James' sharp voice would have frightened me if I had been younger. Now I was determined not to let her intimidate me.

'I received a letter…'

'From whom?'

'I would rather not say, Mistress. This letter told me that Master James was seriously ill and that the shop was doing badly. I decided to come up here and find out the truth for myself.'

'Did you now?'

'Yes, Mistress. Please, is it true? Is Master James very ill?'

Mistress James looked down at her folded hands. She did not speak for several heartbeats. Then; 'Yes, Mister Joyce. He is very ill indeed.'

'Is he going to die?' The words slipped out before I could stop them. What a stupid childish thing to say.

'We are all going to die, Peter.'

'I… I know, Mistress.' I paused. 'May I go and see him? Visit him in hospital?'

'Not today. Visiting hours are over for today.'

'Then tomorrow? May I see him tomorrow? Please, Mistress?'

Mistress James looked up into my eyes and smiled. So desolate was that smile that I knew straight away that the situation was utterly hopeless.

'Master James would like that, I think. He has been asking after you.'

'Thank you, Mistress. May I stay here until then? I could bed down in the workshop.'

'The workshop is closed. You may sleep in Mason's room tonight. It was she who wrote to you, wasn't it?'

'Yes, Mistress.'

'Foolish girl! Go on now, Peter. Take your things upstairs. You did bring a bag, didn't you?'

'Yes, Mistress.'

'Good.' She dismissed me with a tiny gesture of her right hand. I returned to the kitchen, picked up my kitbag and climbed the stairs all the way up to the attic, and Carrie Mason's old room.

There was a bed, a chair, a small press and a hanging cupboard in the room. That was all, apart from a faded Persian rug and a window out of which, if you leaned dangerously over the sill, you could see the back yard. It was cramped and sparse, but it was no worse than I was used to in my digs in Brummagem and much better than the old place under the counter where I slept when I was an apprentice. I found sheets and blankets in the press and made up the bed. I wondered whether I should unpack my kitbag – how long would I be staying here? In the end, I filled the drawers and the cupboard with my clothes and spare socks. Then I took out my treasures:

Two books – one of plays by a man you haven't heard of and a small brown volume of fairy stories by another writer you don't know either. A small statuette of a little green man with pointed ears who I still called Yodatm even though I knew that wasn't his proper name. A red folding knife with a silver cross. A deep photogram – one you could see into – of the Parry family. A small black box, full of songs and moving photograms. These were all the wonders that John Parry had given me when I visited his world. They were _twonkies_ – they didn't belong here in our Brytain.

And two more things, both of them powerful and dangerous. First, a gun so small that it looked like a kid's toy, made of a warm black slick material. Just above the grip a red light blinked once every second. It had been blinking like that ever since Arthur Shire had taken it from Miss Morley's hand in the intercision cell in Cropredy. No – if you don't already know what that word means, I'm not going to tell you. Not all knowledge is good, or needful to know.

So far as Arthur and I could tell there was no limit to the power of that gun, nor to how much charge it held. 'We thinks it collects Dust-energy and stores it,' Arthur told me once. That would mean that it would never run out of power. Arthur had given it to me the last time we met, and I had taken it from him most reluctantly. 'It's no good,' he had said. 'We is the wrong person to keep it. We would not use it wisely. We would be tempted by it.'

'It should be destroyed,' I had said.

'Yes, we knows that. But does not know how to destroy it safely. If Doctor Malone did not dare to open it, neither should we.' I should say that John Parry had told me about a weapon called a Lazy Gun that had destroyed a whole city when some experimental theologians tried to open it up. It had been booby-trapped, or it had been so full of captive energy held under pressure that it had burst.

I had had to agree with Arthur – the gun was a problem that would not go away. I had consented to keep it safe with me.

'That way at least we always knows where it is,' Arthur had said.

The last of my treasures was, of course, Lyra's alethiometer. She had left it to me in her will, and the Dean and Master of Jordan College had acceded to her wishes and not tried to take it back from me. Nor had the Boreal Foundation ever attempted to steal it, so far as I knew. It was an infinitely precious thing – absolutely priceless, in fact – but I was only its guardian, not its user. I could, as I did the first day I met Lyra, frame a question with the three pointers and start the indicator spinning, but my training was incomplete, cut short as it was by Lyra's untimely death. From time to time I took it out and tried to divine the truth with it but, nine times out of ten, my attempt failed. For all I knew that tenth time was a fluke, anyway.

So it was no good my taking it out of its blue velvet pouch and asking it "Will Master James die?" Firstly, as Lyra had told me, the alethiometer did not make predictions. And secondly, I would more than likely not be able to interpret the truth that it gave to me. With a sigh I placed it on the top of the press, along with all the other inestimably valuable and dangerous things. Later I went out for a stroll around the familiar streets of Oxford and took my supper in a Tartar restaurant not far from the Martyr's Memorial at the Town end of St Giles. Then I returned to Shoe Lane and my borrowed bedroom.

I should have expected it, I know, with us being back in Oxford and staying in Master James' house, but it still came as quite a shock when, just as I was drifting off to sleep, the bedroom door opened and Carrie walked in. She was around sixteen years old, I think, wearing her housemaid's outfit of a white apron over a black mercerised pinafore dress. She sat on the edge of the bed, kicked off her shoes, stretched and yawned and, to my great embarrassment, broke wind loudly. I was inclined to giggle, but Viola hushed me.

Carrie took off her apron and frock, slipped down her lisle stockings and linen drawers and, putting her mob-cap on the press and her clothes on the back of the chair, got into bed, still wearing her cotton shift. I was suffering from a mixture of mortification and lust. I felt like a peeper, because I had invaded Carrie's bedroom (at my mistress' direction, it is true) and seen her disrobe; but I was also aroused by the sight of her naked form.

'Stop it, Peter,' said Viola. She knew where my thoughts were leading. 'She's only a time-ghost. You know that.'

Of course she was. How could we both lie in the same bed and yet not touch one another if we were not separated by a gap of (I guessed) at least ten years? Both Carrie's virginity and my abstinence were guaranteed by the distance of Time that lay between us. This Carrie - the Carrie who was gently snoring on the same pillow as me - had not yet heard of Peter Joyce. In fact, she had only recently taken up her position of maid-of-all-work in Master James' household. I was still living in Tring with my mother, father and baby brother Tom, and would not be coming up to Oxford to begin my apprenticeship for another three or four years.

I've called this chapter of my story _I Go to the Radcliffe Infirmary_ but, now that it comes to it, I find that I don't want to write very much about my visit to the hospital where Master James lay dying.

He knew it, of course. Even if the doctors and nurses hadn't told him, he would only have had to look at his visitors' expressions to know that it would not be very long before the end. My face must have given me away too, just as the faces of the others had betrayed them. How could it be, that he was both swollen up _and_ shrunken, shrivelled _and_ bloated? The disease that was eating him away was a terrible thing, a foul invasion of his spirit.

He had been in a great deal of pain, but he was now receiving doses of poppy that were, in themselves, lethal and an implicit admission by the hospital that there was now little more that they could do but ease his passing as best they could. His breathing was laboured and irregular and his eyes were nearly shut, but I sat by his bedside, leaned over him and said, as steadily as I could, 'Hello, Master. It's Peter. I've come to see you.'

His eyes opened then, and his ocelot-daemon Amanda, lying on his pillow, looked up slowly. Viola left my coat pocket and lay down next to her, enfolding Amanda's body in her own. I felt – oh, I can't describe it. We were linked, Master and I and, for a while, Viola and I were able to lend Amanda and him some of our strength.

We spoke of the old days. I told him a little about what had happened that summer when I had first gone to Jordan College and met the Professor. He told me about the times when he had been a "snotty-nosed apprentice" and the misadventures that he had got himself into. We talked and talked and all the time our Dust – Viola's and mine – streamed into Amanda and him and sustained them. Even so, despite all that we could do, it was becoming ever clearer that Master was weakening fast. Finally, he made a great effort and lifted his head from the pillow.

'Peter,' he said. 'You will look after the shop, won't you, when I'm gone?'

'Yes, Master,' I replied. We both knew that there was no point in my trying to encourage him by saying that he would soon be well again and back at his old workbench in Shoe Lane. _What would Lyra do?_ Tell the truth, of course.

'And Matilda and Emily?'

'Yes, Master. I'll take care of them'

'Thank you, Peter. I knew I could rely on you.' He sighed, and his head fell back onto the pillow with his eyes closed. Amanda looked at his face longingly for a minute, or it may have been longer. Then she kissed Viola, slipped out of her embrace, and with a last gentle whispering breath she disappeared. Master James lay completely still.

I sat by the side of my Master's bed, staring blankly at his face, not noticing the tears that were running down my cheeks and falling, one by one, onto him. Eventually a kindly nursing sister came to me and led me away, still sobbing, to her room where she gave me a cup of kaffee and asked me the necessary questions that her professional duties required. Later, when I was more composed, she put me in a hansom cab and I returned to Shoe Lane, where I let Mistress James know what had happened.

I told you I didn't want to write about it.


	5. I Say Farewell to Master James

_I Say Farewell to Master James_

_The clock has stopped in the dark_

Thomas Stearns Eliot –_ The Family Reunion_

The funeral took place three days later. In the meantime I stayed on in Oxford and did what I could to make the shop look more presentable and help Mistress James with the preparations. I saw no more ghosts during that time – not of Carrie, nor anyone else.

When the day for the funeral came – it was a Friday, as I recall – I got up early and prepared breakfast for everybody in the house just as I had done for the past couple of days. At about ten o'clock the carrier came with my trunk from Brummagem. It contained the rest of my clothes, including the dark suit and tie that I had worn for Lyra's funeral. I had some doubts as the whether it would still fit me, but with a certain amount of pushing and shoving I managed to squeeze myself into it. Mistress let down the trouser bottoms so that my socks wouldn't show.

After that there was the waiting; sitting with Mistress and Emily and Elias Cholmondley in the silent kitchen for minute after endless minute while Master's body lay quietly in its coffin in the room upstairs. Then there was a muffled knock on the door and the undertakers came and lifted the casket and took it carefully downstairs and out into Shoe Lane, where the hearse stood outside the front of the shop, ready to take Master James on his last journey. Mistress and Emily took their seats by the driver, while Elias and I stood behind, for we were to follow the cortege on foot. The shops up and down Shoe Lane pulled down their shutters – matching James and James, where the curtains had been drawn tightly all week – and shop assistants, craftsmen, cashiers and proprietors alike stood solemnly by their front doors, with their hats in their hands and their eyes downcast, paying their last respects to my master.

It took only a short while for the funeral procession to reach St Michael's Church, at the crossing of the Cornmarket and Ship Street. Just as they had in in Shoe Lane, people stopped what they were doing and were still for a moment as we passed. Elias and I helped to carry the coffin into the church – I was glad that we were able to do that, even though we both knew that there were matters remaining to be sorted out between us.

The ceremony went without a hitch, so far as I can remember. To be honest with you I wasn't paying very much attention to what was going on or what the priest was saying – I was too busy with my own thoughts. The church was full, I believe, though as my place was at the front with the family I couldn't really see anyone else. The hymns were well-sung; that I can say. There were prayers, and an address, and a committal, no doubt, and everything was done properly and in the correct order. I stood up and sat down and kneeled in the right places, just as everyone else did. And so the proprieties were observed in the way that Master James would have liked.

After the last prayer was said all we got up, left the church by the side door and entered the churchyard where the grave had been made ready for the burial, and where we were to say our final goodbyes. When my turn came I cast a handful of earth onto the coffin, wished my old master farewell, and gave him a few extra words of encouragement. Perhaps of all the people there, I alone knew what Master James would find on the other side of death. You see, Lyra had told me about it a few months before she died, while we sat in her rooms in Jordan College one Saturday afternoon. Oh, those Saturdays!

'Peter,' she'd said, taking off her glasses, 'did I ever tell you about the time I met my Death?'

'No, Madam Professor. What do you mean, your Death?'

In reply she'd told me all about how she and her friend Will Parry had travelled to the World of the Dead, and what they had found there.

'It's funny,' she'd said, 'but of all the things we did at that time, meeting Gracious Wings may yet turn out to be have been the most important. You see, nobody actually needs to be afraid of death any more. Dying, yes, that is still a terrible thing, but afterwards… All the old threats and horror stories that the Authority and his disciples used to frighten us with have turned out to be quite meaningless – no more than lies to keep us pliable and obedient to their will. We're all going to die, Peter, but afterwards we'll be free – free to be ourselves.'

'What about Arthur? Didn't he die, saving little Davey with our Dust in the gyptian cottage? You brought him back, didn't you? How could that have been possible?'

'It was special with Arthur, Peter. Death wasn't ready for him.'

'But he died. Sal… went away. What really happened that night?'

'I mustn't say. It's a secret between Arthur, the harpies and me. One day you'll know.' And she'd smiled her slow smile and laid her hand briefly on mine and I'd had to be content with that.

So I let the earth trickle between my fingers onto Master James' coffin and said 'Goodbye, Master' out aloud but added under my breath, _Tell them your story, Master. Make it a good one!_

The wake was held in a nearby hall, hired for the occasion. Carrie was there, and Jim, and all the local organisations like the Lions Club and the Round Table sent representatives who expressed their sorrow at Master James' passing and passed on their condolences to his widow and daughter. Also, of course, there was a deputation from the Guild of Temporalists. Goodsir Moore had not been exaggerating when he had told me how highly my master had been regarded in the Guild.

'He was a very well-respected man. You were very lucky indeed to have him as your master,' Grandmaster Dewarth told me, holding a plate of ham sandwiches in one hand and a glass of Jerez in the other, while his civet-daemon nuzzled his left ear.

'I know that, Grandmaster,' I replied. 'I have been very fortunate.'

'Are you going to carry his craft forward yourself, now?'

'Grandmaster, I cannot do that. I have yet to attain my Mastery.'

'Ehem. Ah, well. All in good time, eh?'

'Yes, Grandmaster.' I bowed, and crossed the hall to the window where Jim and Carrie stood apart from the other mourners.

'Cor, Peter. Was that…'

'It certainly was. Grandmaster Dewarth himself!'

'Are you going to be promoted in the Guild? Will you be going back to Brum?'

'I'll stay here a little longer, Carrie. Then, yes, I'll probably go back.'

'You'll come and visit us before you go, won't you?

'If there's time, yes. I'd love to.'

We talked about old times for a while longer and I learned something of how Jim and Carrie were getting on. Then I rejoined the main group and helped to pass around the food and drink. Oh, and I chatted to Emily too. She was sitting close to her mother, sipping orangeade and listening to the adults talking. I hardly counted as an adult in her eyes, so I suppose I made a welcome change. Actually, I thought of myself as the big brother she didn't have.

There's just one other thing I'd better mention before going on with this tale. It was after most of the guests had left and we were beginning to think about returning to the shop. Carrie said it, not meaning to stir things up, I'm sure. 'You've not seen Jane since you came back?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'You know why not.'

'She misses you, you know'

'Still? Pull the other one.'

Carrie heaved a huge sigh. 'I don't know, Peter. I don't understand you at all. I thought you two were the perfect couple.'

'Well we weren't. All right?'

'Yes. Sorry I mentioned it.' Carrie returned to Jim's side; and that was that.

The following morning, Mistress James summoned Elias Cholmondley and me to Master's old office. She sat, rigidly self-controlled, in the revolving chair in front of the desk, which was loaded down with boxes, folders and ledgers. Her daemon sat in her lap, Viola nestled in the crook of my elbow.

'Mister Joyce, Mister Cholmondley, sit down please.' She indicated two hard wooden chairs.

'Gentlemen, I shall be brief and direct. I have asked you here because it is important that we all understand what the position is. You know that James and James has been trading at a loss for the past six months, since Master James' final illness first manifested itself.'

I hadn't known that, but I nodded anyway.

'The business has not been doing well. In fact, our finances are now in such a parlous state that unless we take action now, the shop will have to close. If that happens, we will lose our home and Emily and myself will be left completely destitute. We will be on the street. I do not exaggerate.'

She linked the fingers of both hands. 'Please, will you help us?' I had never seen Mistress James look so desperate.


	6. I Set to Work

__

I Set to Work

I shook my head.

'Mistress, I don't understand. Why might you have to leave the shop? It belongs to you now, doesn't it? Haven't you inherited it from Master James?'

Mistress James slowly shook her head. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Elias grinning at my ignorance. It seemed that he knew more than I did.

'If the shop had belonged to Master James then I would have inherited it from him. But it did not belong to him. It belongs to the Middlewich Trustee Bank.' 

'I'm sorry, Mistress, but I still don't understand. Why didn't Master James own the shop? His father owned it before him, didn't he?' 

'Yes, he did. But Master James has - had - a younger brother.' 

'I didn't know that! I've never heard of him.' 

'He is not spoken of.' _Oh_. I thought for a moment.

'But wait. Master James was the elder brother?' 

'Yes' 

'So why didn't he inherit the shop when his father died?' 

'He did inherit it. But not long afterwards his brother got into trouble of an… an ecclesiastical nature. It required a considerable gift to the Church before they would consent for him to be forgiven his sins, which were manifold and grave.' 

'What sort of trouble was it?' Mistress James frowned and Elias grinned again, enjoying my discomfiture. 'I'm sorry, Mistress. It's none of my business.' 

'No, Peter, it is not. At any rate, the only way that Master James could raise the money to save his brother from the close attentions of an Inquisitor of the Consistorial Court of Discipline was to mortgage the shop to the Middlewich Trustee Bank. That mortgage was repayable over a twenty-five year period, of which five years still remain to run.' 

'How much...?' 

'Fifty pounds a month. Six hundred pounds a year.' 

I sat back in my chair, gobsmacked again for the second time in a week. Six hundred pounds a year! That was a terrible financial burden for the shop to bear. 

'Won't the bank give us a breathing space until the shop gets going properly again?' 

'We have already missed four payments, totalling two hundred pounds. The bank have said that they will foreclose on us at the end of the month if we do not immediately make payment to them of two of the outstanding instalments. I have their letter here.' Mistress James indicated a buff envelope lying on the desk. 

'What about the Guild? Won't they help?' 

Mistress stood up, her eyes filled with anger. 'The house of James and James does not beg for charity!' 

'But Master paid his Guild subscriptions every month, didn't he? They ought to support us now!' 

'We will not beg!' The matter was evidently closed.

'What I propose to do is this. I will write to the bank, letting them know that the business is once more upon a firm footing and viable. I will ask their forbearance in extending the term of the mortgage by a year and rescheduling our payments.'

'Will they do that, Mistress?'

'They may, if they are inclined to believe my assurance that the shop is a real going concern. They must be convinced of that, or they will give us no more time. They will repossess the premises and turn us all out.' Mistress James looked straight into my eyes and I suddenly understood exactly what it was that she was saying. 'Will you help us Peter? Viola?'

'I…' She cut me short.

'You must understand this: you have not yet attained your Mastery. The name of the shop will remain James and James for the foreseeable future. You would be an employee of the business, not a partner in it. Furthermore, I would be unable to pay you regular wages or provide you with any more recompense than your basic bed and board.'

'Mistress, you honour me with your candour.'

That was certainly true. This was the deal she was offering me: that I must give up my position at Moore's in Brummagem, where I was under the guidance of two Masters of the Guild and could expect, if all went well, to gain my own Mastery within ten years. In exchange for the sacrifice of my professional career she could offer me little more than a resumption of my old status of employee, with no clear path to attaining my full Guild Membership nor of ever being able to launch an enterprise of my own. I had always dreamed that one day, when I was a Master myself, Master James would take me into partnership with him and that the sign above the door would read _James and Joyce_. Now I did not see how that could ever be possible. In addition, Mistress James and I had never been friendly; had hardly spoken to one another except when necessary. I did not know if I would be able to work for her.

It was the worst offer I had ever received and I made my choice with no hesitation whatsoever.

'Yes Mistress, I will do all I can to help,' I said, and Viola kissed me as I said it.

This was how it was all to be arranged: Elias Cholmondley would resume his position behind the counter in the shop. I did not like this, but there was little alternative – we could not afford to advertise for a new shop assistant and there was the extra benefit that his presence there would give a good impression to the public of Business As Usual. Mistress gave him a duster and a broom and told him to clean the place up. Emily would have to give up her schooling and take over Carrie's old job as maid-of-all-work. She didn't like that either. Mistress James would manage all the financial aspects. She shut herself into the office with strict orders that she was not to be disturbed and started work on the books and ledgers.

And I… I took the key from its hook in the office and walked down the steep stairs to the ground floor. There it was; the workshop. The place where I had learned just about everything I knew about clocks and instruments, and the world of work. I would have to use that knowledge now, and my skills, to earn the money that was needed to keep us all afloat. I had no idea of how easy or difficult that would turn out to be. I suspected that I was facing the biggest challenge of my life.

I turned the key in the lock. It grated slightly as if the wards had not been recently oiled and the barrel had become stiff with lack of use. The hinges creaked as I pushed the door open. Nobody had been into the workshop for many months; that was clear. Dusty light filtered through the windows in the walls on the kitchen, shop and passageway sides of the room.

What had I expected to find? I know what I'd dreaded – that the workshop would be dirty and disordered, with parts and tools scattered about; damaged or broken. I should have known my old master better than that. I should have trusted him. In the dim light – we had always had to use additional naphtha lamps in there, even in midsummer – I could see that the benches were immaculately tidy, and that the larger tools were all properly clipped in their correct positions on the pegboards above. I walked over to Master's old workbench and opened one of the drawers. Yes, the smaller tools were there – screwdrivers, augers, picks, spring compressors, all in the right places, all gleaming with a light sheen of preserving oil and free from rust. The workshop was pristine, perfect – just as it had been left.

It was a gift. Viola and I knew it at once. It was the last gift of Master James to me, his apprentice Peter Joyce. He'd known that I would come here after he had gone, ready to carry on with our work, and he had wanted it to be _right_ for me. I sat on a stool – my old stool – and wept grateful tears.

'I'm glad I stayed, Master,' I whispered.

'We'll do him proud,' said Viola.

Mistress James placed an advertisement in the _Oxenford Town Crier_. It read:

**JAMES AND JAMES**

Messrs _JAMES and JAMES_  
crave the Indulgence of  
the General Public and  
beg leave to inform them  
that they are once more  
at their Service in the  
Manufacture, Repair and Upkeep  
of _All Kinds And Makes_ of  
Fine Clocks and Instruments.

Our Showrooms in Shoe Lane Display  
the _Latest_ and _Most Accurate_  
Clocks and Timepieces  
for the Attention and Interest  
of the Discerning Connoisseur  
of Artistic Craftsmanship and  
_Mechanical Perfection_

Elias and I worked hard all weekend, he scrubbing and polishing the shop (though I replaced the broken glass in the cabinets) and Viola and me busy in the workshop making an inventory of all the parts and metal that we had in stock. If it were at all possible, Mistress had said, I should avoid buying ready-made parts from a materials house such as Cousins'. That would be far too expensive, so I would have to make as much as I could from bar steel and brass.

That meant a lot more work for me, but I understood the reason behind it. We would be seriously strapped for cash – actually I had no idea how we were going to make enough money to pay off the bank, let alone buy in components. Or eat, for all that.

I wrote to Goodsir Moore in Vyse Street, Bromwicham, and explained what I had done, and why. I thanked him for his kindness over the past two years and begged his forgiveness for leaving at such short notice. I should say that he would have been within his rights to withhold my outstanding wages or, indeed, to take me to the County Court for breach of contract, but he did not. Instead, a few days later I received a parcel from him. It contained a letter thanking me for my contribution to the success of Moore's, a company cheque for five pounds, and my tool wallet.

That was it, then. Goodsir Moore had returned my tools to me. It was final – I could not return to Brummagem. There would be no safety net for me if James and James failed and the bank's bailiffs repossessed the property. I would be as homeless as Mistress James and Emily. I simply _had_ to make a go of it.

I want to say a few things about the meaning and the mystery of tools, by the way, but I'll leave them until later on in the story.

So, on Monday morning we opened for business. Elias turned the card around in the door, switched on the anbaric lights, and took up his position behind the counter where he had a little stool to sit on. The shop, I am sorry to say, was terribly bare and empty. The existing stock of timepieces and instruments had been sold off, one by one, during Master's illness and had not been replaced, so that apart from the long case clock by the door and a couple of ugly Lombard bracket clocks in the counter cabinets there was nothing for us to sell. One thing, though – I had raised the grandfather clock's weights and set it going, so at least there was one movement running in the place and one set of chimes sounding the hours, half-hours and quarter-hours. The shop was alive again at last, if not yet in full health.

I sat by my bench in the workshop, ready to be summoned to the front if a customer required my expert advice or assistance. Mistress was busy in the office, writing to suppliers and past customers. She was assuring the first group that we would, very soon, be able to settle our accounts with them. As for our customers; she was assuring them that we were very much in business and ready to fulfil their orders and, in a few cases, pressing for payment on outstanding goods and services already provided. That was a forlorn hope, and we knew it. We could not afford to employ debt collectors.

Emily sat forlornly in the kitchen, listlessly chopping vegetables for our midday meal. She missed her school friends dreadfully and felt, more than any of us, the loss of our position in the town. We all missed Master James, of course, but what good would it have done to say so? A lot, you say, and you're right. Perhaps we were still too close to it all then, and not ready to talk about him. I wish we had, though.

At half-past ten, our first customer walked though the front door. I overheard him speaking to Elias and could not help noticing the disappointment in his voice when he learned that his stopped eight-day carriage clock would not be attended to by Master James, but by his erstwhile apprentice Mister Joyce.

'I wanted the organ grinder, not the monkey,' he said.

'Mister Joyce is very experienced,' said Elias smoothly. I could not see his face.

'Hmmm. Well, see that he does a good job. That clock belonged to my mother.'

'I'll make sure of it. Thank you, sir.' The door closed with a jingle of its bell.

'Here you are, Mister Joyce,' said Elias, handing me a nasty cheaply-made lacquered-brass clock which its owner probably thought was a priceless family heirloom. 'See what you can do with that.'

'Much obliged, Elias.'

'I must say,' said Elias, lingering in the workshop doorway and fondling his rabbit-daemon, 'that I've observed that a little politeness goes a very long way. Wouldn't you agree, _Mister_ Joyce?'

'Yes, Mister Cholmondley. Thank you, Mister Cholmondley.'

'Peter,' Viola said later, as I contemplated the jumble of mass-produced stamped-out clock components that lay in a pile on my bench. 'Don't let him get to you.'

'I won't. Honestly! Now, fetch me the oiler, would you? The clear one, on the left of the rack.'

Viola scurried across the bench, got me the lubricator, and carefully held each arbor in place for me as I reassembled the clock's movement, reminding me to drop the least possible amount of oil onto the pivots.

'What a useful daemon you are!'

'I do my best.'

'I know.'

'I know you know.'

'Good.'

I was home, and we knew it.


	7. I Seek Literary Advice

__

I Seek Literary Advice

If you've read the other story I wrote; about the time when I first met the Professor, and Mister Shire and the gyptians and all that, you'll remember that I scribbled it in an exercise book and showed it to my mate Jim, who used to be an apprentice at Bigsby and Jarrett, Bookbinders, also of Shoe Lane Oxford. I reckoned that he must know a lot about writing and storytelling because he had so much to do with books as part of his trade. Whether that was true or not, he did give me some useful advice, generally over a pint or two (paid for by me) in the snug bar of the Talbot Inn. So, after I had written the chapters that (I hope) you've just read, I decided to take Sunday afternoon off and go and see him and Carrie. I thought he could give them the once-over and tell me what he thought of them.

It was a week or two after we had re-opened the shop. Business was slow, to be honest – very slow indeed. It was only to be expected, of course, what with the shop having run down so badly, but that didn't help the situation. There were still those bank payments to make and I'd not missed the anxiety on Mistress' face, dominated by sadness as it was. She sat in the office all day; sometimes writing (I could hear her quill pen scratching on the James and James letterheaded paper as I passed), sometimes just looking out of the window. 'Peter,' she said once, hearing me go by and turning round in her chair. 'Do you think we could open a stall in the Covered Market and do some more trade there?' 

'I'm sorry, Mistress,' I replied. 'I couldn't look after a stall and the shop at the same time.' 

'No, I suppose not.' She'd sighed and shaken her head.

'We could place some more advertisements in the papers.'

'Advertisements cost money.' She turned back to her letter-writing and I went downstairs to my silent workshop, Viola riding dejectedly on my shoulder.

The other thing you might remember from reading the other story is that I couldn't abide going to church. Now that I was no longer an apprentice I was determined not to let myself be browbeaten into attending Divine Observance all day every Sunday. I was prepared for a real fight with Mistress James over this, and I wasn't going to give way either. Back in the old days it used to be the case that your business would be condemned if any of its employees or associates were not regular churchgoers. Over the years things had moved on a little – even so an old-fashioned, long-established shop like James and James was expected to stick to tradition.

Stuff tradition. I didn't think we could afford tradition any more. What we needed were some new ideas. In the meantime I was determined to be allowed to spend Sunday as I chose and I was not about to let Mistress James deny it to me. I was ready for a fight.

Have you ever done this – I mean, gone up to somebody expecting to have a real ding-dong knock-down argument with them, only to find that all your carefully rehearsed arguments aren't needed? There're two reasons for that. The first is that the other person isn't going to listen to anything you say because they've already made up their minds and aren't going to be persuaded by you. The other reason is that they don't care.

It was a terrible shock to Viola and me to find that it made no difference to Mistress James whether I went to church or not. 'Just as you like, Mister Joyce,' she said bleakly, sitting in her cheerless, empty dining room. I stared at her.

'You don't mind?'

'It's nothing to me. You're over twenty-one. You must make your own decisions now.'

'Yes, Mistress, but…'

'Times change, Mister Joyce. We must change with them.'

I returned to the workshop quite crestfallen. How far Mistress James had been brought down – it was as if there was no fight left in her. Nothing else could have driven it home so forcibly to me what desperate straits we were in.

So it was with a worse feeling than if I had defied the wishes of my mistress that I caught the Botley autobus the following Sunday afternoon at two o'clock. I was carrying a red notebook with my new story – what you've been reading – written in it, together with Lyra's alethiometer and the black box that John Parry had given me. The old 'bus rattled and banged down Hythe Bridge Street, over the canal and past the station, going under the wrought-iron bridge that carries the tracks south-east to London. London! Where I had never been, and where Lyra had met the King and saved his life too.

Carrie and Jim were living in a ground floor flat in an old house just off the Botley Road, a mile or so beyond the railway. It was obvious to Viola and me as we stood outside the front door that Carrie had not been exaggerating when she had said that they were very poor. The house was badly in need of new paint, and new roof-tiles, and a new window-frame or two. There was a pile of old scrap metal lying in the front garden, with weeds growing through it. I was glad that I had arrived after lunchtime, so that they would not feel obliged to give me something to eat. 

'Peter! You came!' Carrie wrapped her arms around me and practically dragged me into their two-room flat. 'Sit down! Chai? Are you hungry, love?'

'I'd like some tea.'

'You've eaten?'

'Yes, thanks.' That was true, although Sunday lunch had been sparse indeed. Bread and honey is very filling, all the same.

It was immediately quite plain that Jim and Carrie were living in sin. A rumpled double bed stood in one corner of their room, giving mute witness to their misdemeanour. Only a few years before they would have been hauled up before the Ecclesiastical Court Of The Mercy Of Our Gracious Magdelena for daring to live together as man and wife outside the bounds of marriage. Now; it was still unusual, and a little shocking, but no longer a criminal offence. Nobody was going to Excommunicate them for it. Or submit them to Corporeal Agony, either.

Carrie pointed to a chair and I sat down and looked around. The room was empty yet cluttered, if you see what I mean. There were a few bits of furniture (obviously second or third hand) and the floor was bare except for a shabby piece of oilcloth in front of the cold fireplace. A faded copy of the _Annunciation_ by Piero della Francesca hung over the mantelpiece. Jim was sitting at a deal table next to the window, bent over a pile of paper and writing furiously with a steel pen.

'Hello, Jim. How's things?'

No response.

'Jim! JIM!' Was he dead to the world?

Jim slowly replaced his pen in the inkwell and turned his seat around so that he was facing me. Carrie was bustling over a stove at the other end of the room, boiling a kettle.

'Mine is a hard and lonely path – the path of a writer. You know not of what you speak, when you speak of solitude, for mine is the greatest solitude of all. The life of the inner soul – the life of a poet, the life of the true creative artist, is a life of penury and toil, unrelieved by the succour of comradely assurance.' He threw his hands in the air.

'Behold – a spirit in bondage!'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'Speak not to me of hell – for hell is where I must writhe in eternal torment until my muse return!' Jim's eyes rolled in their sockets. I gave up on him.

'Carrie!'

'Yes, Peter love?'

'What's Jim on about? What have you been feeding him on?' _Oops. That was a silly thing to say. When did they last eat?_

'Oh, pay him no attention. He's writing his book, that's all. Jim!'

'Yes, my beauteous vision?'

'Peter's here. Put that pen down.'

'As the desire of my heart commands. I am thy devoted servant always.'

'Get on with you!' Carrie chuckled and levered open the lid of the tea caddy with a teaspoon.

'So what are you doing?' I asked Jim.

'I'm writing my novel – _The House of Grammerye_.'

'The House of what?'

'Grammerye.'

'What's that?'

'I don't know, but it sounds good. Don't you agree, Tat?'

Jim's daemon Tattycoram nodded her head vigorously.

'What's it about? Your book, I mean.'

'It's a generation-spanning saga of high romance, adventure and rumbustious good humour. Oh, and poetry too.'

'Is that why you were talking like a prat just now?'

'That,' Jim stood up and adopted an orator's pose, 'was Cedric the Ambivalent, Poet and Jester to the Court of King Alphonso the Magnificent of Belgravia. He's lost his heart to the cruel lady Michaela, Madonna of Beloved Souls and will have to do battle with the cruel deformed dwarf Harold of Lackshee to save her from drowning in a bed of Grif.'

'A bed of Grif?' I asked, but Carrie hushed me.

'Don't let him get started. He'll never stop. Drink your tea and tell us what's been happening in Shoe Lane.'

So I told them, and I could see Carrie's round face growing ever more serious as I spoke. 'I heard of that brother of Master's. Just once. I heard them talking one night, Mistress and him.'

'I never knew a thing about it.'

We fell silent. To lighten the mood, which had grown sombre, I passed my notebook over to Jim. 'Here. Take a look at this. I've been writing it all down. Go on, I'd like your opinion on it.'

'It'd better be an improvement on that stuff your wrote last time!'

Jim and Tattycoram settled down to read, while Carrie took the cups and saucers out to the back yard to wash them up. I looked out through the grimy windows while Jim flicked through the pages. Suddenly he spluttered with laughter. 

'You saw Carrie doing _what_?'

__

Oh Dust and Stars! I should have had more sense than to leave that bit in…

'Er, yes Jim. I only caught a brief glimpse of her. Nothing more. Really.'

'Carrie!'

'Yes, Jim love?' Carrie stuck her head around the door.

'Have a look at this!' Jim passed the exercise book over to her. 'Top of the page. Look, there where he says…'

'Oh yes!' Carrie had the grace to blush slightly. She read out aloud, '"I was also aroused by the sight of her naked form." Were you now, you dirty devil!'

'It was a very nice naked form,' I said, wondering if was making things better, or worse.

'I'm sure it was,' Jim remarked and gave me a sideways look. Carrie slipped next to him and ran an arm around his shoulder. Their daemons rubbed their noses together.

'But it was a time-ghost,' I added, suspecting that this might not be quite enough to get me out of trouble. 'I've been seeing more and more of them recently. They don't mean anything'

But they did.

'Look,' I said, to force a change of subject. 'I've brought the Sony! What shall we watch?'

'_The Larks of Ambridge_,' said Carrie quickly. Jim and I groaned. We couldn't face watching another of her favourite soap operas.

'How about _The Silver Bird_? Or _Daughters of the Sith_?' I said.

'No. Too much fighting and swearing.'

'Or _Dumber Than That_,' said Jim. 'You like that one. It's really funny.'

'Really disgusting, more like,' said Carrie. 'How people can find that sort of thing amusing – it's beyond me.'

'_Return to Numenor_?' suggested Viola. 'It's got Orlando Bloom in it.'

'Oh yes! Put that one on!' Jim and I looked at each other and grinned. Sly daemon!

So I set the box that John Parry had given me – one of my precious _twonkies_ – on the table and asked it to show _Return to Numenor_. I'd seen quite a few moving photograms at the Oxford Kinetorium but that didn't seem to be anything like this. The Sony seemed to project its picture into open space instead of a white wall or screen. It hovered over the middle of the room like a magic window into another world. Ah, but I had heard about them! The picture was in brilliant colour, unlike the dingy monochrome, or occasionally tinted, view you got at the Kinetorium and there was sound – clear powerful sound that, by some magic, nobody could hear if they were more than ten feet away from the picture. I've no idea how the box worked, nor how it stored all those _films_ inside it, as well as all the music that lived in there as well. It was from John's world, you see, where the cars talk, and can drive themselves, and the houses look after you (instead of your having to look after them) and you can buy magic in little black boxes (but only if you've got a phone with your money in it).

The first time I'd shown the Lifestation's films to Jim he'd thought they were morally dubious, because none of the people in them had any daemons. He'd found it profoundly disturbing, in fact, and it was only after I'd explained that the daemons were _inside_ the people on the screen, and he'd accepted what I'd told him, that he'd been able to watch and understand the stories on the imaginary screen. Lyra had told me about it – how she'd seen films in an Oxford cinema (as they called it) when she first went to Will's world. Of course, she'd seen lots of people whose daemons weren't visible by then, so it wasn't quite so much of a shock for her as it was for Jim or Carrie. Neither of the films she saw with Will that day were stored in the Sony, which had been a sadness for her, I know. But again, how would she have felt watching them again without him sitting by her side? Perhaps it was a small kindness, after all.

Carrie gave us more tea and cakes after the film finished. She said she got the cakes from the Rose Teashop in the High Street, where she was working as a waitress. Then it was time to go, so I picked my things up and went to the front door. Jim and Carrie followed me.

'You ought to get this taken away, or sell it to the scrap merchant,' I said pointing to the rusty pile outside the door. 'What is it – an old boiler or something?'

'That,' said Jim with a flourish, 'is a Ridgeworth Steamer.'

'A what?' I said. I noticed that I'd been saying that kind of thing all afternoon.

'It's a car,' said Carrie. 'Jim's restoring it.'

'A car?' I moved one of the pieces of metal with my foot. It fell against another piece, equally old and rusty, with a muffled clank.

'Yes, a car,' mimicked Jim. 'It's steam-powered – it runs on coal-spirit. Or naphtha, if you like. See, there's the burner. I'm going to start rebuilding it soon. Do you want to help?'

'Yes, all right. Starting next Sunday?' It would be a welcome break from the shop.

'Cheers! You're on, mate!' Jim had been watching too many _films_, I could tell. Still recovering from the generous hug that Carrie had given me, Viola and I returned to Shoe Lane. We chose to walk this time, as it was a pleasant evening. In fact it had been a very pleasant day, and I was already looking forward to going back to Jim and Carrie's again next Sunday.

The following Monday was very far from being a pleasant day. That Monday was one of the worst days of my life.


	8. I Commit an Act of Betrayal

_I Commit an Act of Betrayal_

The morning sun crept through the window of my room, slipping through a gap in the curtains and finding its way onto one side of my pillow where it lay in wait for me. I must have rolled over in bed, for a beam of light stabbed my eye, ambushing me and waking me instantly. I covered my eyes with my right hand and sat up, blinking away the dazzling images that floated in front of me. Gradually my sight returned, and I saw Mistress James standing just inside the door, wearing a dressing-gown over her night-robe. Her hair, nut-brown and glossy, was hanging over her shoulders. She must have come straight from her bed and climbed the stairs to my attic room without delaying to attend to her toilet.

'It's nine o'clock! You're late! Why are you still in bed? There're hundreds of things to do. Come on, get up you lazy creature!' She was clearly not at all happy.

'But Mistress, it's still early…'

She seemed not to hear me. 'Mason, I have heard quite enough of your excuses. Get up this minute!' And then I understood. If I hadn't been so befuddled with sleep I'd have realised it sooner. I was seeing a time-ghost, from perhaps ten years ago. Mistress James' hair, which was grey now, had once been brown, I remembered.

I heard Carrie's voice briefly; apologising for lying in and missing the alarm before the vision faded and I found myself alone again – except for Viola, of course. She was feeling every bit as dozy as me, and we lay together for another few minutes before we got up.

Was that a ghost from my past, or the past of another Peter Joyce? I could not tell – there was no way of telling unless the vision showed me an event which I remembered. Even then, it might have been a shared event; one which both I and one of the myriad of other Peters who existed in the past, or who may yet exist in the future, held in common.

I could not tell, and it made little difference to me whether Carrie had overslept ten years ago. So I got up, and washed, and dressed, and went downstairs to the dining-room where Emily was already up and about, setting out the breakfast plates and filling the toast-rack.

'Hello Peter,' she said, sad-eyed and tired.

'Morning, Miss Emily,' I replied. By rights she should have addressed me as _Mister Joyce_, but I couldn't bring myself to correct her. Of us all, she was having the worst time of it, I thought. It seemed unfair to insist that she should speak formally, when she looked so sad and downcast. I wanted to hug her and kiss her on the cheek and tell her what Lyra used to say to me – _Don't worry, Peter. Everything will work out for the best in the end_ – but that would not have been right, she being only fifteen and my employer's daughter. Instead, I smiled at her, and she coloured a little and went out of the room and downstairs to fetch the kaffee pot.

Mistress James joined me presently and helped herself to toast and kaffee. It was all too obvious to me now; the difference between the way she looked in my room and her appearance now. There were more – many more – lines on her face and her hair had gone almost completely grey. Even without those outward signs, her posture gave her away. It was tense and strained; like a piece of wood that has been bent as far as it can be before it cracks. I wondered how much more stress she would be able to withstand before she gave way and collapsed. If that happened, I was sure that the house of James and James would fall with her.

Neither Mistress James nor I spoke very much. We both knew where things stood. At eight fifty-five we heard the key turn in the lock of the street door. Elias Cholmondley had arrived and the shop would open for business in five minutes. It was time for me to go down to the workshop.

There was, as I have said, not very much work on hand. I hate having nothing to do so, to keep myself busy, I had started to build a clock using some materials that we had in stock. I had wanted to make a clock of the kind known as a Vienna Regulator, but I was not sure whether I would be able to gather together enough bits and pieces from the metal that we had in the workshop to do that. A true Vienna Regulator is a weight-driven wall clock that keeps especially good time. A well made and adjusted one can be relied upon to remain accurate to within a few seconds a week. It's the kind of project that I might have expected to have been taking on as part of my Mastery training at Moore's, if I had stayed there. I'd had the thought that if I could make a clock that could be sold for a good price it would help with the shop's debts.

It looked, though, as if I would have to settle for making a cheaper clock with a spring-driven movement. Frankly, this was a better idea. Who would want to pay three or four hundred pounds or more for a Vienna Regulator, however well made, from an unknown maker; especially one who had not achieved his Mastery? Although I believed I had the skill to make a respectable clock, it would be over-ambitious for James and James to attempt to sell it at the sort of price that would be commanded by the work of a Master.

So I had gathered together some brass plate and steel bars and found a pattern book on the shelves behind the small furnace. The book contained a number of plans, including one for a "Bijou Vienna-style Wall Clock", which was a good place to begin. It was nice and simple to build; with two trains, a Graham escapement and a simple striking mechanism in a plain walnut case. There was no fusée, and only a straightforward compensating pendulum (rather than a full gridiron). I was sure that somebody would be happy to pay, say, fifty pounds for such a clock to hang in the hall, or at the top of the stairs. I wished I had an apprentice to set to work on making the cabinet, but there was no question of that. We could not take on a boy – as I had been taken on before – because there was no Master in the house to sign his indentures.

I was trimming the spring for the going train when there was a knock on the workshop door. I assumed that it was Elias Cholmondley, with an enquiry from a potential customer or a repair to pick up. A couple of alarm clocks, and the carriage clock from the previous week, were ready on the shelves. I called out, 'Come in!' without looking up from my work.

'Mister Joyce.' I did look up then. It was the first time, so far as I knew, that Mistress James had entered the workshop since her husband's death.

I got up from my stool. 'Mistress?'

'Would you come to the office, please? I have something that you should see.'

Puzzled, I put down my work and followed her out of the workshop (locking the door behind me) and up the stairs to the office. I sat down on one of the hard wooden chairs by the door. Mistress James went over to the desk, took a manila envelope with a Kaestershire postmark and handed it to me. She stood by the desk, silently looking out of the window over the yard behind the shop.

The envelope had already been opened so, without asking, I took out the letter that it contained and read it. Jim would say that I ought to tell you how an icy hand clasped my heart, or the air froze around me, or something like that. Perhaps that's the way he'd have described it in his generation-spanning saga, but that was all made-up stuff, romance and excitement and all, while this – my story – is real. So no, there were no icy hands or frozen air. Just awful, awful despair.

__

Dear Sir, (the letter said. It was addressed to Master James, even though the sender knew that he was dead)

__

We are in receipt of yours of the 20th inst. We note your request for an extension and reschedule of the mortgage granted on the premises known as James and James, Shoe Lane, Oxford.

We beg to inform you that, having given careful consideration to the points that you raised in your letter, we are unable to grant the special terms which you have requested. You will understand that we have a responsibility of good stewardship to our shareholders which precludes our taking risks of such a nature as you describe. It is with regret, therefore, that in the absence of a resumption of your regular premium we shall have to yield to the necessity of taking steps this day towards the recovery of our assets, as represented by our lien on the aforementioned premises and their contents.

Assuring you of our best attention at all times,

Yours sincerely,

Geo. Burden

pp. H. Mitchell, director.

'Its contents? They can't do that!'

'They can, Peter. It's in the original terms of the mortgage.'

'But… but the shop is worth far more than we owe the bank! Never mind the contents!'

'Even so. If we don't make the repayments, they're entitled to recover everything that was secured against the original loan. If you had been a partner in the business, rather than an employee, then all your property would have been liable to recovery by the Middlewich Bank as well.'

I was standing up too, although I don't remember when I rose from my chair. 'That's not fair!'

'Nobody said it was.'

'Oh, Mistress!' I couldn't help it – I threw my arms around her and pulled her to me. Viola clung to my shoulder and looped her tail around the back of my neck. Mistress James stood stock-still and rigid and presently, feeling that I was giving her no comfort nor receiving any myself, I let go of her and returned to my chair.

'Thank you, Peter.' Had I, in some small way, helped her? I don't know. I'm hopeless when it comes to understanding people, especially women. Ask Jane Phipps.

'What shall we do?'

'We can do nothing. We cannot sell any of the contents of the house to pay the mortgage, obviously, as they already belong to the bank. It is possible that they may be merciful creditors. They may allow us to keep a few personal possessions, so long as they are not too valuable. They will probably grant us the clothes we stand up in, if only for decency's sake.' Mistress James sat at the desk, put her head in her hands and slumped, defeated. 'You'll be all right, Peter. The bank may even take you on as manager of the shop, to keep it as a going concern. Mister Cholmondley too.'

__

Manager! I, a craftsman hoping to achieve Mastery, was going to be a _manager!_ If it had been anyone else but Mistress James who had made such a suggestion I should have swallowed my anger somehow and walked away.

'Thank you, Mistress. May I go now?'

'Yes, Peter.'

I walked back downstairs to the workshop and unlocked the door. Everything in there was waiting for me – neat and tidy and organised and ready. I could resume fettling the mainspring of my new clock. Perhaps, one day, it would be finished and fetch a good price. Perhaps it would be displayed in the window of James and James (Under New Management). But I would not be there to see it.

Elias Cholmondley suddenly appeared in the doorway. Damn! Why hadn't I locked it behind me? 'Bit of bad luck for the Missus, eh?' he smirked. You're expecting me to tell you how I leapt to my feet and stabbed him in the neck with an auger for his presumption, aren't you, Jim? I didn't, though. I was past all that. And there's another thing. I was asking myself, _how did he know_?

'Piss off, Elias, there's a good chap,' was the best I could come up with.

We closed the shop at lunchtime. I went to my room and, for the lack of anything else to do, picked up one or two of my things and put them in a small bag. Then I went out again. You know where I went and why. I had the hope – now that I was seeing the time-ghosts again – that I might see _her_. If there were any place that I might catch a glimpse of the Professor it would be in Jordan College or the Botanic Garden. Jordan was closed to me – Lyra's rooms were occupied by someone else now – so I walked down the long slope of the High to Magdalen Bridge, and the Garden, and the place where she lay, and the bench next to it.

There was somebody sitting there, eating sandwiches, so I wandered off and sat on the grass, near to the waterside . 'What shall I do?' I said to nobody in particular.

'Ask the alethiometer,' said Viola.

'It doesn't work for me.'

'Ask anyway.'

'It won't help.'

'There's nothing to lose by trying.'

There wasn't, so I slipped the alethiometer out of its pouch and held it out in front of me.

'Go on,' said Viola. I framed the question: _What must I do to save the shop?_ and set the pointers as best I could. The needle spun and twirled back and forth, widdershins and anti-widdershins. That part of my abilities had never left me. The instrument still responded to my enquiry. The oracle spoke, but I lacked the training, or the intelligence, or both, to divine its meaning. Lyra could have helped, if she had been there. She would have made mental notes of the positions at which the needle stopped and, perhaps, she'd have been able to decode the answer the instrument gave right there and then, without having to resort to the Books. I had never had a set of my own, as they were hard to find. Lyra had been hoping, I think, that I would be able to read the instrument by instinct – or Grace, as she called it – so she had not left me her books when she died.

I was thinking of Lyra's death and that of her sister Elizabeth who had died also, only a month or two later, and so I lost my concentration. The needle spun, as I've said, and I watched it move, but I paid little attention to it. After a minute it came to rest and I found myself none the wiser as to the oracle's message. 'It's hopeless!' I cried out aloud and, hardly knowing what I was doing, I got to my feet, ran down to the river, the alethiometer clasped in my upraised hand. It was useless; this compass made of fool's gold, this worn-out antique, this false guide…

'No!' said Viola, and she sunk her teeth into my neck.

'Ouch!'

'Stop, Peter. Think!'

'It's no good. Nothing's any good now.' I sank down onto my knees by the bank of the river and wept. Presently, Viola licked the tears from my cheeks with her soft tongue (I tasted their saltiness through her).

'Don't despair, Peter. Remember what Lyra said.'

'"Things will work out for the best." Yes, I know.'

'Did the alethiometer tell you nothing?'

'No. Nothing at all.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, of course! You _know_ that.'

'Yes, I suppose so.' Viola paused. 'Peter, there's one thing we can do.'

'What – to stop the bank repossessing the shop, you mean?'

'Yes. How much money do we need?'

'Two hundred pounds. No, wait. There's this month's premium to pay as well. Two hundred and fifty pounds, then.'

'Can you think of anyone who would give us two hundred and fifty pounds?'

I laughed. 'No. Can you?'

'Mum and Dad?'

'Are you really my daemon? Or some kind of impostor? You know they haven't got that sort of money to spare.'

'That's true. What about us?'

'What?'

'Have we got two hundred and fifty pounds?'

'No, of course we haven't.'

'Or anything we could sell for two hundred and fifty pounds?'

I thought. 'My tools, no. My clothes – hardly! Oh – do you mean the twonkies?'

'Maybe.'

'Well… not the books. They're certainly rare. I don't suppose that there are any other copies of _The Collected Works of William Shakespeare_ or _The Wonders of Urth and Sky_ in this world, but who would want to buy them? They're not leather-bound or gold-blocked or marbled, or anything like that.'

'The Swiss Army penknife? Yodatm? The photo of the Parrys?'

'Might get a pound for them, I suppose.'

'The Sony?'

'Maybe… But who'd buy it? We need the money _now_. This afternoon, probably. The bank won't want to wait any longer.'

'The gun?'

'Oh good grief! Daemon, are you mad?'

'Only if you are.'

'Right.'

'So, we can't sell any of the twonkies because nobody in this world could put a price on them…'

__

Oh. I looked directly into Viola's eyes. 'I know where this is leading.'

'Good. At last.'

'But I _can't_. No! It was… it was Lyra's. It's all I've got left of her…'

'You said it was useless.'

'I didn't mean it!'

'Yes you did. You can't read it.'

'No…'

'So why not sell it? Any antiques dealer would recognise its value. You could get thousands for it.'

'Oh, no, no, no…' I rocked on my heels. This was impossible. Was that the choice I had to make – have the shop taken away from us, see Mistress James and Emily disinherited and thrown onto the mercy of the Middlewich Bank; or sell the alethiometer? _Lyra's_ alethiometer – the only remaining link between me and her memory?

'They're depending on you, Peter.'

'I can't!'

'You must.'

'There has to be another way…'

'Not in this world.'

I stood up. 'Yes, there is. Come with me.'

'Oh, all right. If you insist.'

Three golden balls. We'd made jokes about them when I was a kid. _Meet me outside the pawnbroker's and kiss me under the balls_. Ha-ha, very funny. It didn't seem so funny now, as Viola and I stood outside the window of Chas Hurst, Jewellery and Securities, looking in at a confusion of necklaces, musical instruments, fishing tackle, bicycles, firearms, brooches, board games, old books and more assorted bric-a-brac than I had every seen in my life. There's a special way of entering a pawnbroker's shop, I'm told. It consists of looking in all directions first; to make sure that you're not observed going in to see your uncle, as the proprietor is usually called. We didn't observe this tradition, but opened the door and strode in. A bell sounded deep inside the shop.

The interior was crowded, not with people, but with household objects of all kinds. Some of them I recognised, some I didn't. Here was an apparatus for taking photograms, mounted on a tripod of mahogany, bound with brass. Over there was a hand-cranked washing-machine, made from what looked like a brewer's cask and an autobus starting-handle. The walls were crammed with prints and paintings, together with a few old and battered-looking clocks. I would have liked to have taken a closer look at them. Perhaps I would be able to buy one or two and refurbish them for sale in the shop. However, there was other business for me to do first. I threaded my way through a maze of tables, chairs and massive Carolinian sideboards to the counter, where (I presumed) Charles Hurst stood waiting for me.

Mister Hurst shared the shop's general air of shabby antiquity. He leaned against his counter and looked up as I approached, tucking a stray lock of once-ginger hair behind the sidepiece of his spectacles. His otak-daemon stood on the counter next to him. 'Yes, Goodsir? What can I do for you?'

'You lend money?' _Ah_, I could almost hear him thinking. _A first-timer_. He was not looking directly at me when he spoke. I supposed that this was part of the etiquette of being a money-lender; that you didn't embarrass your clients by seeming to take any notice of them.

'Yes, Goodsir.'

'I have an instrument…'

'Let me see. Put it down on the counter.' I did as he asked. The alethiometer, still in its velvet bag, rested on the oaken counter top.

'If you would just take it out of its little bag for me…'

Slightly puzzled, I undid the cords at the bag's neck and removed the alethiometer. It lay there between us, glittering in the oil lamps which stood on either side. The otak-daemon scurried forward and started to examine it closely.

'My Christina, as you can see, is an expert in these matters.' And then I understood. _He was blind_. 

'Yes,' Chas Hurst seemed to read my mind. 'It was an accident. When I was just a boy, you know.'

'I'm sorry.'

'Sorry? But it was not your fault. You were not there. You are a young man.'

How many times had he said those words? Christina, his eyes, turned the alethiometer over with a deft movement of her paws and closely examined its underside.

'So.' Mister Hurst fiddled with his useless spectacles. 'You appear to have an alethiometer, or a good copy of an alethiometer.'

'It's genuine.'

'Is it, now? Does it work?'

'Yes, it does.'

'Can you prove it?'

'Ask it a question.'

'If you knew anything at all about alethiometry, you would not say that.'

'Then ask me, and I will ask it. Your daemon can watch.'

'Very well.' He asked me the question: _How may I regain my sight?_ I set the pointers to the Owl (for Night, or Darkness), the Hourglass (for Change) and the Sun (for Day, or Light).

'Now watch.' I concentrated on the question and the needle immediately sprang to life, spinning and halting, halting and spinning. The otak's eyes followed its movements while I tried as hard as I could to memorise the places where it stopped.

'Well?' The blind man's eyes flashed behind the lenses of his glasses. 'What is the answer?'

'I cannot tell you,' I answered truthfully. 'I cannot read the oracle.'

'But you can work it?'

'Yes.'

'Are you sure you cannot read it? Do you perhaps seek to _sell_ me the answer to my question?'

'Mister Hurst, I am not a charlatan. Do you think I would be bringing this alethiometer to you now if I could read it? I would keep it for myself instead and use it to my own advantage. Don't you see that?'

'Yes,' he reluctantly agreed. 'Then,' he went on, 'how do I know that you are the true owner of this instrument, and not a common thief? Perhaps, fifteen minutes after you have gone, I will receive a visit from the constables and lose my pledge.'

'I am not a thief. Would I be able to work the alethiometer if I had only just stolen it?'

'No, I suppose not.'

'And besides; this instrument was bequeathed to my in her will by Lady Lyra Belacqua, sometime Professor of English at Jordan College in the University of Oxford, and my dearest friend.'

Christina looked sharply at me. She climbed onto Mister Hurst's shoulder and whispered in his ear. He nodded twice.

'Goodsir…?'

'Joyce.'

'Mister Joyce, I apologise for impugning your character. How much do you want me to advance you against this pledge?'

I drew in my breath. 'Five hundred pounds.'

'Five hundred pounds! That is a great deal of money, Mister Joyce. You will understand that this alethiometer is, quite literally, priceless. My Christina informs me that it is one of the original six which were made in Prague by Pavel Khunrath. Although its value is very great, it cannot be readily translated into pounds, shillings and pence. Let us suppose, for example, that you were to fail to redeem your pledge. To whom could I sell the alethiometer? What provenance could I show for it?'

'You just told me that it was one of the original six.'

'Yes, so my Christina tells me.' He stroked the otak's fur. 'But where is the evidence for this? Paperwork, Mister Joyce. It's so important in my line of work. Do you understand what I am saying to you?'

Unfortunately, I did. I could almost hear Master James saying exactly the same words to someone who came to the shop with an old clock to sell.

'Yes, I see, Goodsir. How much could you advance me, then?'

'One hundred and fifty pounds, two hundred maybe.'

Oh no – was all this to be for nothing? 'Mister Hurst, I shall be forthright. I am depositing this instrument with you so that I can save myself, and a family to whom I owe a very great debt of kindness, from ruin. If you cannot offer me at least two hundred and fifty pounds against the alethiometer than I must, with regret, leave your shop now and seek help elsewhere. You see the advantage you have over me.'

'Hmm…' Mister Hurst spoke to his daemon briefly. 'Mister Joyce, what is the name of the family whom you seek to save from… ruin?'

I hesitated. Why should I tell this man all about our troubles? Then: 'James, sir. James of Shoe Lane.'

'James and James, the clockmakers?'

'Yes, sir. I was Master James' apprentice.' I swallowed hard.

'I see. Would you wait a minute, please?' Mister Hurst and Christina picked up the alethiometer, replaced it in its bag, and disappeared into a room at the back. A door closed behind them and Viola and I were left alone in the shop. A minute later they returned, Mister Hurst carrying a leather wallet and a small account-book. 'Mister Joyce?' His sightless eyes were looking straight towards me now.

'Would you sign here, please?' Christina indicated the place in the book where I should write my name. I took a quill from the inkwell on the counter and signed.

'Thank you, Goodsir.' Mister Hurst blotted the page and closed the book. He passed the wallet over to me. 'Here are the five hundred pounds you requested. Master James was a good man, and well known for his acts of kindness in the town. I should not wish to be the cause of any further distress to his widow and dependants. I shall keep the alethiometer safe until you are ready to reclaim it. There will be no interest charged. Farewell, Mister Joyce.'

I gulped. 'Goodbye, Mister Hurst. And thank you.'

'Don't thank me, sir. Thank Christina. She sees so much, you know…'

Afterwards, I returned to the Botanic Garden. Lyra's bench was free this time, and I sat there with Viola, clutching the precious wallet and shaking with the grievous knowledge of the terrible thing that I had done. The shop was safe now, but at what cost? Suppose Lyra's time-ghost were to appear before me now, what would I say to her?

Again I cried out aloud, 'Oh Lyra, Lyra. I have betrayed you!'

This time, Viola let my tears fall unimpeded.


	9. I am Castigated by Mistress James

_I am Castigated by Mistress James_

_Oh mistress mine! Where are you going?_

William Shakespeare –_ Twelfth Night_

When I returned to the shop, it was to find that the bailiffs had got there before me. There was a large motor-van drawn up outside the front door, with two men in brown coats leaning against the side of it and smoking. The smell of burning leaf hung around them like a rumour of bad news. This bad news had attracted a small crowd of onlookers, who were hanging around, leaning against the shop-front or standing in small knots in the street, gossiping among themselves. Glaring at them (as if that would do any good) I pushed open the front door of the shop and walked in.

A short stout man, wearing a formal suit of grey pinstripe, stood on one side, holding a parchment in his hand and nodding his head as he spoke, as if to reinforce the importance of his words by, so to speak, agreeing with them. His shrew-daemon echoed his actions. Opposite him was Mistress James, standing very stiff and upright, her pale face in striking contrast with her mourning dress, which was made of black silk with black lace trim. Elias Cholmondley was at his usual place behind the counter. It was fortunate that neither Mistress James nor the bailiff (for such I presumed him to be) could see Elias' face. I could, and the look of satisfaction that rested on it repulsed me. If it were possible, I loathed him more at that instant – which he clearly regarded as his moment of triumph – than at any other time before or afterwards which, when you consider what he was to do to me later, was quite an achievement.

It quickly became clear to me that the bailiff was in the process of spelling out to Mistress James exactly how far the firm of James and James had defaulted on its responsibilities to the Middlewich Bank; and also what the said bank was going to do in order to recover its assets.

'…You must understand, Mistress James, that I speak not for myself, but for the interests of the management and shareholders of the bank. The original Deed of Mortgage was perfectly explicit and precise in its terms. In return for the bank advancing you a very considerable sum of money, it became incumbent upon the house of James and James to make the appropriate repayments at the appropriate times. The bank has been lenient, Ma'am – generous indeed – in allowing you to miss a total of…' he consulted his parchment, 'four instalments which come, I believe, to a total of two hundred pounds sterling.' He paused and looked up from his parchment to Mistress James.

'Yes, Goodsir,' she said. 'The amount is correct.'

'We have, as I say, been generous – perhaps unwisely so. It is never a good idea, in my opinion, to allow defaulters such as yourselves very much latitude in, hem, catching up. As a rule, if a mortgagee falls behind with his repayments it is because he is in financial difficulties of a serious nature – so serious as, generally, to be irrecoverable. The situation goes from bad to worse, and a small debt quickly becomes a large one. That certainly appears to have been the case here.' He looked around at the bare shelves and cabinets of the shop's interior and nodded again, pleased to have had his point so well corroborated.

I spoke for the first time since entering the shop. 'Goodsir?' The man turned around and stared at me as if to say, _and who are you, sir?_

'Hello, Peter,' Mistress James said; and to the bailiff, 'This is Mister Joyce. He is the firm's craftsman.'

'A craftsman, eh? You will soon be needing to practice your trade somewhere else then, my man.'

'Will I?' _Keep calm, Peter_, Viola said.

'Yes, young man, I think you will. Has your mistress not told you?'

'Told me what?'

'That the business of James and James is in default to the Middlewich Bank, to the tune of two hundred pounds?'

'Oh?' I put on as foolish a face as I could. Mister Cholmondley grinned, unseen by anyone but me. 'That's a lot! When's the money to be paid?'

'Four months ago,' the bailiff replied sharply. 'I'd go and pack my things if I were you. You wouldn't want me taking them as well.'

'Sorry? What do you mean?'

'Peter…' said Mistress James, but the bailiff spoke over her. 'Everything here is the property of the bank. Everything.'

'Everything?'

'Everything. Unless I receive the sum of two hundred pounds by…' he consulted his gold hunter, making a serious matter out of the business of extracting the watch from his waistcoat pocket and opening the front cover to reveal its face, '…five-thirty, I shall take possession of these premises and require you to vacate them _instanter_.' He nodded again, impressed with his own Roman scholarship. 'The gentlemen outside will secure the bank's property and change the locks,' he added.

'Two hundred pounds…' I mused.

'Peter…' said Mistress James again

I took Chas Hurst's wallet from my pocket and opened it. The money (_Lyra's money_) lay there, tucked into a clip inside the wallet like the pages of a book. I extracted four fifty-pound notes from it and handed them over to the bailiff. 'Would this do?'

I have to give the man some credit for his self-control. Without, so it seemed, blinking an eyelid he took the banknotes from me, unfolded each one in turn, and held it up to the light, checking for the foil strip, the serial number and the signature of the chief clerk of the Great Bank of London.

'That would appear to be satisfactory.'

'Oh,' I said, 'you'd better have this month's money too, hadn't you?' I gave him a further fifty-pound note, which he checked as carefully as he had the previous four.

'Thank you, Mister Joyce.'

'May I have a receipt, please?'

'It is not usual.'

'Nevertheless, Goodsir, I should like an invoice. For the avoidance of any future misunderstandings, you know.'

Grumbling slightly, the bailiff took a small receipt book from his pocket, opened it and wrote that the Middlewich bank had received – paid with thanks – the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds in settlement of outstanding arrears of mortgage payments in respect of the property occupied by the firm of James and James of Shoe Lane, Oxford. He tore out the slip of paper and offered it to me, but I indicated that he should give it to Mistress James, who had been standing stock-still and silent during our interchange.

The bailiff turned to leave. 'Thank you Mistress James, Goodsirs. If I could just press on you the importance of making future repayments on time? You will, in due course, be receiving an account for the expenses we have incurred in making this call on you. Good day.' And with a final nod, he walked out of the door into Shoe Lane. We heard him telling the broker's men outside to pack up and go. I glanced at Elias Cholmondley. _Gobsmacked_. Yet again, that was the perfect word.

'Would you come to the office with me, please?' Elias Cholmondley lifted the counter flap and I followed Mistress James through the back of the shop, past the workshop and up the stairs to the first floor. Mistress signed to me that I should enter. I went in and waited while she passed through the doorway, her skirts rustling against the frame, and closed the door. She turned and faced me, her face silhouetted against the light from the window so that I could not read her expression. I supposed that she had invited me into the office to thank me for what I had done.

'Mister Joyce!'

'Mistress?'

'Mister Joyce,' she repeated, her voice shaking and unsteady. 'What exactly are you playing at?'

I was confused. 'Mistress, I have paid off the mortgage arrears.' Why did she ask?

'How? Where did you get the money?'

'I... I'd rather not say, Mistress.'

'You would rather not say. You would rather not say! What did you think you were doing?'

I had realised that her voice was shaking, not with relief at her escape from penury, nor the release of pent-up emotions, but with terrible anger. 'Mistress, I was trying to save the shop. Master's shop.'

'Do not say his name! You must not say his name! You are not fit to speak it!'

'No, Mistress. But…'

'But?'

'I had to do something to help.'

'Did you? Where did you get the money? You _will_ tell me!'

'Mistress, please!'

'You _will_!' She had stepped up close to me. We were only one or two feet apart now.

'I sold, I mean I pawned, something.'

'What?' Mistress James' voice was low, but there was no mistaking the fury in it. I was beginning to be seriously frightened. 'What was this _something_? Where did you get _something_ that could be pawned for two hundred and fifty pounds?'

'It was… it was left to me.'

'An heirloom? Where does Peter Joyce of Tring get an heirloom of such value? Your family does not possess such a thing, does it? Tell me, did you not steal this _something_? Well?' My fear was rapidly turning to outrage. How dare she accuse me of theft!

'No, Mistress, I did not! It was left to me by Ly… by Professor Belacqua. When she died.'

'And not before, eh? Are you quite sure?' Mistress James' voice was bitter.

'No.'

'And so, Mister Joyce, you have pawned this _something_ for two hundred and fifty pounds…'

'Five hundred, Mistress.' I held out the wallet.

'Do not interrupt me again!' She struck her hand against mine, forcing me to drop the wallet to the floor. 'Peter,' Viola whispered urgently in my ear. 'Don't you see what's happening? Can't you see how she feels?'

No, I could not.

'So,' Mistress James hissed, 'for the sum of two hundred and fifty pounds this… boy thinks that he has bought the well-respected house of James and James lock, stock and barrel. A fine bargain, don't you think? What a superb discount, to purchase the best clockmaker's in the city of Oxford for only two hundred and fifty pounds! You must think you're a splendid fellow, _Mister_ Joyce! What a very shrewd man of business you've become!' The colour was rapidly rising in her cheeks.

'It's not like that!' I protested feebly.

'I wonder what else the fine Mister Joyce thinks he has bought with his two hundred and fifty pounds. What do you think, eh? Do you think you have bought _me_ as well?' She took hold of her lace collar with both hands and pulled downwards with great force, tearing the silk of her dress and the camisole beneath, and exposing her bosom to me. 'There!' Her voice was becoming increasingly shrill. 'Is this what you want? Is this what you have paid for with your two hundred and fifty pounds?'

'Mistress, please.' I turned away, ashamed.

'Oh! Am I not sufficiently attractive? Perhaps this rich young man finds me a little too old? Too shrunken? Too worn? How young does he like the whores he purchases with his _money_?' Perhaps he would care for something a little fresher? Perhaps he thinks he has bought both the mother and the daughter! Should I call for Emily now? Will you use her here in the office, over this chair maybe, or will you take her upstairs to your attic and enjoy her there? What would you like to do with your _property_?' Mistress James turned away from me and stood bent over with her arms across her chest, her body heaving with great sobs of anguish.

'_Go now_,' said Viola, so I did, closing the office door softly behind me. There was nothing that any of us could say. I returned downstairs and Elias Cholmondley passed me in the passageway, returning from using the privy in the back yard, I suppose. He glared at me, but did not say a word. It seemed that I had saved the shop, but lost the trust of both Lyra and Mistress James. After supper, which was a cold, silent meal, I went directly to my room and sat staring at the wall. I had not known that I could feel so wretched.

But it was no time-ghost who came to me that night, and slipped between the sheets of the bed, and clung to me in the darkness, weeping.

'She got her titties out for you, did she? And Master James not dead more than a couple of weeks! Bloody hell, Peter, you're a fast worker!'

'Eff off, Jim! Shut the effing hell up!'

'Now, now, boys. Language!' Carrie joined us in the back garden of their flat, with a tray of cakes ('from the teashop. They won't miss 'em!') and a pot of tea.

'Eh-up lads! Ladies present!' said Jim, grinning widely.

'Give me that book back!' I made a dive for the exercise book, but Jim lifted it out of my reach and I sprawled over a chair and landed on the grass, next to the pile of scrap metal – sorry, the Ridgeworth Steamer – which Jim had moved from the front of the house to the back. Jim laughed, Carrie laughed – stars above, _Viola_ laughed… Eventually I laughed too, but I knew I'd be feeling the bruises later.

'Did Viola explain it to you? Why Mistress was so upset?'

'Yes', I told Carrie. 'I see it now. But at the time I was so full of myself, so glad to have got rid of that silly little bailiff and so… sad at losing the alethiometer that I didn't think about her feelings.'

'Good. And you've not _lost_ the alethiometer. You'll be able to buy it back one day. Hurst's is a good outfit. They'll look after it for you.'

'I know. But where am I going to get five hundred pounds?'

'You'll do it somehow,' said Jim.

'Jim'll give you the money, when he makes our fortune. Won't you, Jim love?'

'Aye, illumination of my soul, inspiration of my dreams!' Carrie blushed. This was my cue.

'How's your book going, Jim?'

Jim stood up. 'Behold, Aragrim the Valorous goes forth on Holy Quest to do sacred battle with the foul esprits of the Dark! Many will be his trials, and arduous!'

'And will he conquer in the end?'

'Yeah, verily, but at a dreadful, unspeakable cost to himself.'

'Does he have any companions on this quest of his?' _As if I needed to ask._

'Do you need to ask? They are Small, the half-wit, Cram, the dwarf, Forge, the Wizard of Dubious Art, not to mention Fergus Nidd, craftsmith and creator of subtile magickal devices!'

'Talking of which,' trying to stop Jim in his flow, 'what about this subtile device?' I kicked the pile of metal, which subsided with a rough creak. 'Where do we start?'

'We start… with this!' Jim held up a pressure gauge. 'We don't want the boiler exploding, do we?'

No, we did not.

'So, Mister Instrument Maker, why don't you fix it?' And he threw the gauge over to me.

'Oh Jim,' I thought! 'It's all so uncomplicated for you, isn't it? Sharing a flat with Carrie, living on her earnings from The Rose teashop, writing your book – which will either sell in the millions or die, unregarded by publishers, agents or readers – enjoying the sun and the rain alike, and making love to your paramour whenever she wants!' (Which, I suspected, was quite often.)

Why couldn't I be like you?


	10. I am a Source of Worry to my Parents

_I am a Source of Worry to my Parents_

'I don't know what to make of you, Peter. I really don't!' Mum shook her head.

'Leave the boy alone, Ma. He's all right.'

'But, really! Throwing up a good job at Moore's to go back to that funny little place. You liked it at Moore's, didn't you son?'

'Peter's got to decide for himself.'

'Not if he's going to go doing silly things like that.'

'It's not silly if it's what he wants to do. Don't you see that, Ma?'

'No I don't.'

I crept out of the room. I was sure that my parents would continue discussing me and my prospects whether I was there or not and I was seriously wishing that I hadn't made this trip home. They might go on for hours yet. I knew my brother Tom was about somewhere, so I tried his room. No sign of him there. Well, if he wasn't in his room there weren't many other places he could be, so I tried the most obvious one. Letting myself quietly out of the back door I followed the footpath down to the end of our road, turned right into Spooner's Lane and then left down the gravel track which led to the towpath.

'Hello, Peter.'

'Thought I'd find you here.' Tom and his mouse-daemon Tessie were sitting by the side of the canal; he with a fishing rod in his hand, looking into the water.

'Knew you'd come. Are they talking about you again?'

'Yes.'

'That's all they ever do. Peter this, Peter that, Oxford the other.' Tom shook his head, fair-haired like mine.

'Are they still calling you Peter instead of Tom?'

'Yes!' That was no surprise. Tom looked just the way I had when I was his age. 'It's not bloody fair!'

'What?'

'You know.'

'Look, Tom…'

'Oh, don't explain!' My brother glared at the end of his fishing line. 'I've had enough explanations and understanding already, if you don't mind!'

'Tom, listen…'

'Shut up!' I turned to leave. 'No… don't go.'

I wished he'd been born a girl. If he'd been my baby sister, I'd have hugged him and everything would have been all right. Instead, I sat next to him while he fished, catching nothing and lifting his rod out of the water when the boats passed, to avoid getting the line tangled up. I wondered idly if I would see the _Maggie_ and the _Jimmy _puffing by, on their way to London or Rugby, Arthur Shire at the tiller of the lead boat and Harry taking care of the butty behind. I knew that was very unlikely.

Should I tell Tom what I had so nearly told my mother and father? No, in his present mood he would only get more upset. But it was buzzing around in my head. I had to tell someone, but I couldn't, so I'll have to tell you, Jim. You'd better bloody well keep it to yourself, though.

It was the morning after that awful day, nearly four weeks ago now, when I had pawned Lyra's alethiometer and settled our outstanding debts with the Middlewich Bank. Mistress James called me into the office and asked me to shut the door behind me. I stood there, feeling very awkward. Which Mistress James would I be talking to? Would she be the angry and desperate woman who had screamed at me in that same room only the day before, or the sad and tragic widow who had sought comfort in my bed?

'Peter, there's something you should see.' She was businesslike, yes, but she smiled briefly as she handed over an envelope, bound in black tape, to me.

'Go on, read it.'

I carefully removed the tape, opened the envelope and took out the document inside. It was a will – Master James' will, dated two years previously. That was about the time I'd left Oxford and gone to work in Brummagem.

'Mistress, why are you showing me this?'

'Read it. You'll see.' Mistress James sat down in her chair by the desk and crossed her arms, waiting. I took one of the wooden seats and began to read.

It was full of lawyer's talk – "whereas", and "reference the first party above" and "by gracious permission of his Majesty the King" (what had the King to do with it?) and there was no punctuation anywhere, but the meaning was clear enough. Everything that Master James owned was to pass to his wife, for her to dispose of as she saw fit. There was no mention of his brother, nor the Middlewich Bank. I am sure that, when he drew up the will, Master James had expected that the debt the firm owed to the bank would have been paid off in full. No doubt he also felt that his brother would have had no expectations of any kind from his estate.

I say; everything Master James owned, but I am only referring to material objects – pots and pans and armchairs. There was another clause; and as I read it I gasped. It was difficult to make out as someone had, at one time, attempted to erase the writing with a piece of caotchuc. It read:

_All my interests in the business known as James and James Fine Clocks and Instruments and presently located in Shoe Lane Oxford I leave to my erstwhile apprentice Peter Carlton Joyce and Viola to take forward in trust as a going concern and to become solely his on the occasion of his attaining his Mastery in the Guild of Temporalists._

I looked up at Mistress James. 'Did you try to rub this out?'

She flushed a little and inclined her head.

'Why?' _Don't you know why?_ said Viola.

'It should not have been you. There… there should have been a son. A son, to inherit the shop from his father, as he inherited it from his.'

I sat in silence. Things were starting to become much clearer to me.

'Instead – you came along. I could see it straight away, the way he looked at you.'

'I loved Master James very much.'

'I know.'

'He was like a father to me. A wonderful father.'

We were quiet for a minute or two. I read the will again. Then:

'Didn't you try to have more children? After Emily was born, I mean?'

'Yes. Yes, of course we did.'

'But without any luck.'

'No. No, we had no luck at all.' Mistress James put her head in her hands.

'I'm sorry. It's none of my business.' I slipped the document back into the envelope, re-tied the tape and handed it to Mistress James. I turned to leave, but as I opened the door she spoke again, so quietly that I had to strain to catch the words.

'We called him Charlie. Not Charles; that would have been too grand a name for someone so very small as him.'

I felt myself trembling on the edge of a precipice of revelation.

'He was so beautiful, my son. After he was born they put him in my arms and I held him close to my breast and I looked, and looked, and looked into his lovely violet eyes and waited for him to become known to us.'

Become known. Oh no. I was beginning to understand.

'His head was resting in my arm and his face was turned to mine and – I know everyone says it's not real, not a real smile – he _was_ smiling at me. I know it. And I waited, and I waited…'

And.

'And she never came. His daemon… never came.'

'Mistress, there's no need to say any more. I understand.'

'You don't! You don't! You can't understand! You weren't there when the doctor and the priest came and took him away from me. You weren't there when my husband came into the room and stood next to the bed and I had to tell him that there was no baby, no son for him, no one at all for him, just a stupid girl that was no good to anybody.'

'Emily's not stupid.'

'She's a girl. She can't join the Guild.'

Mistress James paused. 'Do you know what they do with children who are born… like that?'

'No. They don't tell us.'

'They are burned. Put on the fire, and burned.'

'Not while they're still alive?'

'They are not alive. Not according to the Church. They are dead. Their sin must be cleansed by fire, you see.'

'Oh…'

I remembered. I remembered Lyra telling Miss Morley that she would have been born daemon-less in our world, she was so inhuman and cruel. She had died by fire too, either in the ruins of the Boreal offices in Cropredy, or Lyra's rooms in Jordan College. I remembered too, the day that Lyra told me that Mrs Coulter, who had stolen children from their families and taken them north to a place called Bolvangar and cut their daemons away from them, had been her mother. There had been a boy called Tony Makarios there, she'd said. Hadn't he been burned too? Didn't Lyra say? Had he been inhuman? Had Charlie?

'Bad blood, my husband called it. Meaning his brother, I suppose. Bad blood. He never… troubled me again after that. We slept in separate beds. We couldn't risk another _thing_ like that happening.'

'Mistress…'

'It's all right. Go to your workshop, Peter. I'll be better presently.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, yes. Go on, now. There's work to do.'

I closed the door behind me and walked downstairs. _Your workshop_, she had called it. It wasn't Master James' workshop any more, but mine.

And there was work to do.

'Come on, Tom,' I said to my brother. 'Let's get back. I've got to leave for Oxford soon.' We walked home, to find Mum and Dad still arguing over my future, completely oblivious to my absence. 


	11. I am a Good Correspondent

_I am a Good Correspondent_

This chapter is dedicated, with the greatest respect and admiration, to Gene Wolfe

Dear Mum and Dad, 

It was good to see both of you looking so well last Sunday. I am back at work now – working jolly hard too. Don't worry about me, even if you can't help it. I just know that everything is going to turn out for the best in the end.

Your loving son,

Peter

P.S. You'll pass on the enclosed letter to Tom, won't you?

Dear Tom,

I'm sorry to stick this letter in with Mum and Dad's but it saves a stamp.

What I want to say is this, I suppose. I don't think it can be all that easy being my younger brother. I came first, after all, and I don't think parents, however hard they try, can help treating their first one differently. It must really piss you off when they call you by my name. I know I'd hate it if they did that to me (except they do!).

You're the age now that I was then – when things first started to go strange for me – or a bit older, so I thought I'd tell you a little about it. It might help you understand why I must seem to be acting oddly and worrying the old mater and pater.

You must have heard me mention the Professor I used to see in Oxford; the one who died, and I've talked about the gyptians too. The thing is, when I met the Prof I fell in love with her. Go on, laugh. Even then, I wasn't so stupid as to think it was the real thing, of course. I'd heard about schoolboy crushes and all that and she was thirty years older than me. Then we had some adventures together that I can't tell you about yet – sorry – but they were the kind of thing you don't forget. You've seen some of my treasures, what I call my twonkies. They come from that time.

You must remember the awful dreams I used to have. They were horrible – so horrible I can't bear to think of them. They stopped when the Prof died, but I don't think that she was the reason I had them. It must have been something else. They were foul, disgusting things, those dreams, like having someone hurting Viola and not being able to do anything about it. I still dream about the dreams, sometimes. That's horrible too.

Now Master James has died and I've got to carry on the business for him, and Mistress and Emily. It's only fair. The trouble is, it means that I can't come home all that often. Everyone's depending on me, you see.

Tom, I promise I'll tell you everything that happens as soon as I think I honestly can.

All the best,

Peter

Dear Jim,

Sorry I wasn't able to come over and help you with the car last Sunday. I thought it was about time I went home instead. The aged ones were getting a bit upset about me leaving Moore's so I thought I'd go and reassure them, even though it turned out to be a waste of time. Do parents ever listen to their children? No, don't answer that.

While I remember, I've got that half-inch bar stock you wanted for the Ridgeworth. There was a spare foot length tucked away at the back of the shop. Heaven knows what Master James was keeping it for. Perhaps he thought it'd come in handy if he had to mend the Great Clock in the Rotunda. It's no use for anything else, so I'll bring it along next time I come. Next Sunday all right? Around eleven?

Things haven't changed much here. I got back about seven and found Mistress still writing letters in the office. Emily was listening to the wireless – some kind of secular music she likes – and Elias C. wasn't around, of course. I have to say he's giving me the creeps more and more. "Creepy Cholmondley!" Ha! I keep on bumping into him around the place. There's always a good reason, like he's gone to the kitchen, or the privy, or he's taking an important piece of paper, like an invoice, to the office, but it's off-putting just the same. In the old days he stayed in the shop, except for mid-day closing.

I'm sure he's up to something, but I don't know what. He'd stick a knife in me if he thought he'd get away with it – I know that.

Not to worry. I'll drop you another line if I can't come round on Sunday. All the best 'til then. Give Carrie one for me,

Cheers,

Peter

I sealed the envelope and wrote Jim's address on the front. There weren't any penny stamps in my writing-case, but I knew I had a couple in my top drawer, so I opened it up and had a look. They should have been in tucked away in Mister Hurst's wallet but, for a moment, I couldn't find it. Oh, but there it was, jammed up against the back of the drawer. That was funny – I was sure I'd put it at the front. I opened the wallet, checked that all the money was still inside it (it was) and dug out the two stamps I needed. I'd have to pick up some more at the post office tomorrow lunchtime. 

__

Not worth worrying about. It was probably Emily tidying up, and I decided to forget it. Time for bed. I put on my pyjamas, got under the covers, took out my copy of _The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky_, and began to read:

_The Young-Old-Young Woman And Her Death_

There was once a boy who, because he was the seventh son of a seventh son, had no family inheritance to look forward to. In its place he possessed a gift, both terrible and wonderful, for he was a prophet.

It was said that his prophecies were so uncannily accurate that, rather than have him be proved wrong, the Universe would change its shape to match his predictions. Now, there came a day in this boy's nineteenth year when a woman, who was both old and young, dark-haired and grey, smooth-skinned and wrinkled with age, came to him, where he sat in the shade of the courtyard of his father's house, and put to him a question. That question was, 'When will I die?'

The boy had heard this question many times already in his life, young though he was, and he always gave the same answer to it: 'Madam,' he said. 'You will die when you find your Death, and he finds you.'

'Then I shall never die, for I have locked my Death away in a dark place far below the surface of the Urth. He will not be able to find me, and so I shall live forever and not die.'

'Does your Death have hands?'

'Yes, he does.'

'Then he will be able to scratch his way through the rock and gravel and soil and grass until he reaches the surface, and then he will be able to find you.'

'He will not, for I have buried him many thousands of leagues away, in a grotto underneath the sea-bed.'

'Does your Death have feet?'

'Yes he does.'

'Then he will be able to kick his way though the sea-water until he reaches the surface, as the divers do who compete in the Great Thracian Games, and then he will be able to find you.'

'But I shall still not die.'

'Why so?'

'Because, before I buried my Death in a cavern deep below the bed of the Peaceable Ocean, I blinded him with a bar of red-hot bronze. He will not be able to see me, and so I shall live forever and not die.'

'Did you remember to seal up his nostrils?'

'Yes, I did. I also blocked his ears with spermaceti wax. He will not be able to see, hear or smell me, and so he will not be able to find me, and so I shall live forever and not die.'

The boy sat and considered the young-old-young woman for a minute or two. Then, 'Wait here,' he said and stood up and walked over to the door of his father's house. The woman heard a terrific crashing and banging inside the house, and the sound of store-cupboard doors opening and closing. Eventually, the prophet emerged, covered with dust and carrying a hessian sack over his shoulder. 'I have brought you the things you need,' he said.

'But I did not ask you to bring me anything. I do not want you to bring me anything.'

'Nevertheless, I have brought you the things you need. Behold!' And the boy emptied the sack onto the ground in front of the young-old-young woman with a loud clattering sound.

She stared in astonishment. 'What are these things?' Scattered across the flagstones of the courtyard lay a pair of antique iron-shod leather sandals, a spade of tempered steel and some aëronaut's goggles.

'They are what you need. You have buried your Death a very long way off, so you will need these hard-wearing shoes to carry you there. He lies many fathoms below the waves, so you will need these goggles to help you navigate your way through the water. And you have buried him deep under the sea-bed, so you will need this spade to dig your way down to his grave so that you may find him. For, my lady,' and the boy fixed the young-old-young woman with his emerald-facetted gaze, 'most assuredly the time will come when the thing which you desire most above all things will be to find and embrace your Death, for he was made for you and you were made for him. When that time comes, I should not wish to come between you, nor be the cause of any undue delay in your union. Now go! And take that stuff with you. It is blocking the path.'

The young-old-young woman replaced the sandals and the spade and the goggles in the sack, and threw it over her shoulder, and went out of the courtyard and into the street, to her home and her husband and her children. She put the things that the prophet had given her on display in her house, and when anybody asked her why she had done so, she replied 'As a _momento mori_.' And it was said in the later days that she was a woman who knew how to die well, and that she had made a good death for herself.

'Peter!' I knew that voice, so I turned round. It was Jane Phipps, standing behind me in the Post Office queue. (Have you noticed, by the way, how the queue you join is always the slowest? And how when you think you're just about to be served they put up the hatch and you have to start again at another one, and everybody else in the post office sniggers at you. And how this always happens when you're short of time? There must be a better way to organise the queuing system. I'll have a think about it sometime when I'm not so busy.)

'Jane! Hello! How are you? You look well.' I almost said, _you've lost weight_. It's said to be the right thing to say to a girl you've not seen for a while.

'I didn't know you were back in Oxford.'

'Yes, I've been here for almost two months now.'

'You never said.'

'I didn't know I was staying. You're not still at MJ's, are you?'

'No, I left Madam Jeanette's nearly a year ago. I've set up a little business with Julie.'

Julie. _Julie_. Oh, yes. 'I remember. Big nose, crooked teeth, brown hair sometimes curly, sometimes straight.'

Jane glared at me. 'Yes, if you insist.'

'Where are you?'

'Here. Now.'

'No! I mean, where's your shop?'

'We don't have a shop. We create exclusive models and fashions in ladies' own homes. What're you doing?'

'I'm back in Shoe Lane.'

'Still the apprentice?'

'No.' I gritted my teeth. 'Master James passed on. It's just me there now.'

'Oh yes,' Jane said coolly. The queue shuffled forward. ' I read something about it in the paper. Big funeral?'

'Big enough. Excuse me.' I had reached the window. 'Six penny stamps please, Miss.'

I took my stamps, handed over a sixpenny piece and turned to leave.

'Bye, Jane. See you.'

'Bye, Peter.'

Viola and I blinked in the sunlight outside the post office. 'Peter!' she said. 'What on earth were you doing in there?'

'Please, Viola. Can you lay off the heavy daemon act for a while? I'm feeling bad enough as it is.'

'You… oh, very well. Let's go home.'

So we did, and that afternoon we sold the Bijou Vienna Regulator that I'd been making to a very posh lady from Headingley who signed herself Laura Sunninghill. She paid sixty-five pounds for it. Sixty-five pounds! That was another month's repayments to the Bank. Another whole month; and some money left over. Mistress James permitted herself a smile, Emily burst into tears and we shut the shop and treated ourselves to Welch Rarebit and a bottle of Amber Ale each (except for Emily, who had lemonade) in the saloon bar of the Talbot Inn.

'We can't do this every time we make a sale, mind,' said Mistress James, taking care not to get mustard on her mourning dress.

'Let's have buns for tea as well!' said Emily and we all laughed, even Elias Cholmondley. Even he.


	12. I Contemplate My Own Mortality

_I Contemplate My Own Mortality_

'Pump harder!'

'I'm doing all I can, Jim.'

'Just a few more strokes and – ah!'

With a loud _whump_ the naphtha caught and a ball of orange flame expanded from underneath the Ridgeworth Steamer's boiler, missing me but singeing Jim's eyebrows spectacularly. Carrie stormed out of the kitchen and stood in the doorway, hands on hips. 'You silly sods! You'll kill yourselves! Peter, you should know better!'

'Sorry, Carrie.'

'Never mind sorry. What are you two up to?'

'We're firing the Ridgeworth. Look!'

Carrie looked. We all looked. In the middle of the garden stood the car that Jim and I were restoring. I say, the car, but you'd have been hard put to recognise it as such. Let's see; imagine an old bedstead that someone's thrown out as being too old and disgusting to sleep on any more. That was what the framework, or chassis, of the car looked like. I'll come on to the bodywork in a minute. On each corner of the chassis was a wheel. Normally, car wheels are covered with inflatable or solid tyres made of caotchuc; which is the sap of the rubber tree, heated with sulphur to make it more durable and moulded in a steam press. The process is called luciferisation, I believe. The original tyres had worn, or rotted, away years ago, so Jim's pride and joy stood on four hard cast-iron rims. If we ever got the car going – and that looked like a long shot at the moment – the ride would be extremely bumpy, to say the least, not to mention skiddy.

At the front of this bedstead-like construction was mounted the engine, which was a Jones-Ridgeworth 500, according to the brass plate fixed next to the flywheel. It had two opposing cylinders, a brass governor, a triple superheater, a patent condenser, a boiler and a firebox which could accept coal or, preferably, a naphtha burner. It was a nice piece of work, well-made and compact. There's a simple rule when it comes to steam engines, Jim tells me. It's this: the smaller the engine, the faster it goes. Oh, and the higher the steam pressure, the tighter the bearing and cylinder engineering tolerances too. In other words, this little motor was going to be a swine to get going.

I must say, I admired its engineering. Because of its small size, the engine's components were made with a precision and finish which made me think of my own work at James and James. Ridgeworths had been expensive cars in their day – the best you could get. Their owners expected the highest standards of manufacture and workmanship throughout, and got it. I just hoped that the original owner of this vehicle couldn't see it now. He'd have had a fit.

The flames had died down and were now burning blue rather than the yellow colour they'd been to start with. I must have over-pumped the burner, creating too much fuel pressure. No doubt if we'd read the owner's handbook we would have been warned about that. Live and learn, don't make the same mistake twice, as Master James used to say. And we had no owner's handbook.

Jim and I stood at a safe distance from the car, watching the heat rise around it and waiting for the first wisps of steam to come hissing from the safety-valve.

'It's taking its time, isn't it?' Jim said.

'Shouldn't be long now.' We carried on watching.

'It should be doing something by now' I said after another five minutes had passed and there was still no sign of any steam coming from the boiler. 'How much water did you put in it, anyway? Fifty gallons?'

'I didn't put any water in it,' Jim replied. 'You were going to full it up, weren't you?'

'No I wasn't. That was your job.' Jim and I looked at each other. Viola and Tattycoram looked at each other.

'Oh hell!'

'Quick!'

I lunged forward, but it was too late. There was a bang, and in a shower of solder droplets the fusible safety plug fell out of the bottom of the boiler.

'Bugger!' I reached for the fuel tap. I should have known better than that. 'Holy effing Magde…' With a hoarse cry I withdrew my hand, which I had burned on the tap. I jumped backwards and fell over with my hand in my mouth. Jim picked up a piece of sacking, wrapped it around his hand and shut off the fuel supply. The flames from the burner died down and went out. Now we both could see that the underside of the copper boiler was glowing a dull red. An ominous crackling noise proceeded from the engine block.

'I'll get some water…'

'No you won't! You'll destroy the whole thing if you pour cold water on it now. It'll blow up! Leave it to cool down slowly.'

'Oh blast. What have we done?'

Carrie came over. She had seen the whole debâcle from the kitchen window. 'Peter! Your poor hand. Come in and hold it under the tap.' I followed her into the kitchen and did as I was told. Viola limped after me, her right fore-paw hurting, I knew, in sympathy with my burnt hand.

I had a clean handkerchief in my pocket, and Carrie bound my hand carefully with it after rubbing goose grease on to my red and blistered fingers. 'That'll be all right in the morning. You're lucky I got to it straightaway else it'd been a lot worse. As for you, Jim…'

'Mon amour?'

'I've a good mind to have Steptoe's round tomorrow to take that nasty dangerous thing away.'

'But, chérie! You remember my promise to you. One day soon, I'll drive you to The Rose tea-room in a genuine Ridgeworth.'

'And they'll all think I'm a lady, not a waitress. I know. But,' she grinned, 'I want to turn up in a car, not a hearse!'

We sat in a row outside the back door, like kids, drinking tea and eating stale rock-cakes. The sun shone fitfully on us and the Ridgeworth Steamer as it slowly returned to a safe temperature. If there _had_ been any bodywork it would all have gone up in flames, so it was a good thing there wasn't any. 'I'll have another look at it later,' Jim said. 'Can you bring your brazing kit over next week and solder that plug back in? We can have another go; with water in it this time!'

'I'm not happy.'

'Don't worry, Carrie.'

'I do worry. You could have been killed, both of you. Burned alive.'

I fell silent. _Burned alive_. Like Mistress James' baby, Charlie. Like Miss Morley, in Lyra's rooms, or in the flaming ruins of the Boreal offices in Cropredy. Like Lyra herself; and Maggie and Arthur, in the terrible dreams my gyptian friend had suffered.

__

Like me. Burned alive, and dead. Cut to pieces by the incandescent beam of Miss Morley's terrible gun in Jordan College, nearly seven years ago. Dead, buried and, maybe, mourned.

'No,' said Viola and licked my cheek with her silky-rough tongue. 'We're alive. I know it. I feel it.'

'Thank you.'

'Penny for your thoughts,' said Jim.

'Peter, love, are you all right?' said Carrie.

We sat on the bed in Jim and Carrie's room. Rather, they sat on the bed, arms entwined and fingers interlinked and I sat in the one and only armchair, trying not to loosen any more of the braiding that hung in loops from its seat. The Sony was playing softly; a collection of Cole Porter songs:

__

Night and day, you are the one,  
Only you beneath the moon and under the sun.  
Whether near to me or far,  
It's no matter, darling, where you are,  
I think of you,  
Night and day.

Day and night, why is it so,  
That this longing for you follows wherever I go?  
In the roaring traffic's boom,  
In the silence of my lonely room,  
I think of you,  
Night and day.

Night and day, under the hide of me,  
There's an, oh, such a hungry yearning, burning inside of me.  
And its torment won't be through,  
'Til you let me spend my life making love to you,  
Day and night,  
Night and day.

A hungry yearning. _Burning_. Yes.

'It's like this,' I said.

'Yes?'

'No. About Elias… He's definitely up to something. I found more things moved.'

'In my old room?'

'Yes, Carrie. I'm sure it's not Emily doing it.'

'Did you get a padlock, like I said?'

'Not yet, Jim. It's embarrassing, locking my things up. What would Mistress think? Or Emily?'

'Never mind what they think. It's you that matters. Are you and Mistress James still…'

'Don't be disgusting!' cried Carrie and thumped Jim hard on the shoulder. Tattycoram squealed and fell onto the bed. A thump from Carrie was not something to be taken lightly. Her terrier-daemon Adrian coughed.

'No,' I said firmly. Truth to tell, I was not sure how the relationship between Mistress James and myself was going to settle down. After her revelations to me she had withdrawn slightly and had visited my bedroom only once in the last month. I simply didn't understand what was happening between us. I never had.

'You're going to have to start keeping closer tabs on our Mister Cholmondley. He's most definitely up to something.'

'Yes, you're right. I don't know how I'm going to do that, though. I can't follow him out of the shop, can I? I'll be too busy in the workshop. He'd see me and suspect something.'

'You'd find out where he lives!'

That had always been a mystery. Nobody knew where Elias Cholmondley lived. Nobody I knew had ever found out, and you can be sure that I, and the other apprentices in Shoe Lane, had tried. He always seemed to fade out of sight, somewhere around St Giles, and disappear from view. 'Who cares?' we all said to one another, and 'You do,' said Viola to me, but we never discovered the answer to the question.

'Well, maybe.' The Sony played on:

__

Strange, dear, but true, dear,  
When I'm close to you dear,  
_The stars fill the sky,  
So in love with you am I._

'Peter,' said Carrie.

'Yes?'

'That's not what's worrying you, is it?'

I sighed. 'No, it's not.'

'Go on, then. What's up? Tell Carrie. Push off, Jim.'

I sat next to Carrie on the bed. Jim took my place in the armchair. 'Come on, now. You're not dreaming again, are you? Not those awful dreams you had?'

'No, not exactly. It's… It's the ghosts.'

'The ghosts?'

'The time-ghosts. You know. Like seeing you when you were still at Shoe Lane.'

'In the altogether!' Carrie giggled. I blushed.

'Well, yes. Do you know why I call them time-ghosts, instead of just ordinary ghosts?'

'No. I never thought about it.'

'And you call yourself a writer, Jim? You're supposed to be thinking about everything you see and hear!'

'Oh, get on with it.'

'All right. It's this. You know I see ghost-people, just as if they were there. I can hear them, too, but I can't speak to them and I don't think they can see or hear me. Did you ever see me in your room, Carrie?'

She poked me in the ribs. 'No, of course not. I'd have had the constables round in a jiffy.'

'Would you?'

'You'll never know.'

'That's a relief. Look, seriously now. It's the people I see that bother me, in a way.'

'Why? Who do you see?'

'I see you, Carrie. And you, Jim, in the street.'

'Do I look real?'

'Pretty real. I have to be careful not to speak to you although, to be honest, it's easier with you because I know you're not living in Shoe Lane any more. Same goes for you, Carrie.'

'Right, I get it. Who else do you see?'

'Lots of people. Sometimes I don't know them, and I step aside to avoid bumping into them, and they're not there after all. I must look really stupid; walking down the road and swaying from side to side to avoid crashing into people who aren't there! I'm the only one who can see them.'

'I hadn't noticed you swaying around.'

'You probably thought I'd had three pints too many.'

'It's been known to happen.'

'And is that what's bothering you, love? People thinking you're pissed?'

'No, not really. Anyway, I can often tell when they're ghosts and walk straight through them. I'm usually right. It's a bit awkward when I'm not.'

'So what's upsetting you?' Carrie gave me a squeeze. 'Go on, tell me. Is it the people you see?' Don't you like them?

'Oh, I like them well enough. But no, I was telling a lie just now. It's not the people I see that worry me. It's the people I _don't_ see.'

'How do you mean?'

'There are some people I see a lot, like you or Emily or Mistress James, and some people I only see occasionally, like Jim, or Fred from the old days. But there are some other people I never see at all.'

'Who?'

I drew a deep breath. 'Lyra. Miss Morley. Master James.'

'You never see the Professor?'

'No. Never. Nowhere.'

'Nor your old master?'

'I thought I would. I thought I'd see him all the time in the workshop. It was his favourite place. Mine too.'

'And you never see him?'

'No. Now do you see why I call them time-ghosts, not ordinary ghosts? I only see people who still exist in now-time. I only see people who are alive. I see them at different times in their lives, but they've got to be alive right now, else I don't see them. If they're dead, like Lyra or Master James…'

'Or that awful Morley woman.'

'Then, nothing.'

'That's weird,' Jim said. 'Usually it's the other way round. Mostly you only see a ghost if the person whose shade it is has died. For you, it's different. Hey, that's great! Can I put it in my novel?'

'No!' I shouted.

Carrie hugged me. 'What is it, Peter?'

I looked at her broad, friendly, concerned face. 'I don't see _me_! I never see me!' I turned to Jim. 'Don't you get it? I should be seeing Peter Joyce's ghost all over the place. I used to be everywhere in Oxford; going to Jordan to visit Lyra, running errands for my master, buying sheet metal stock from Cousins', sneaking into the Talbot Inn, but I never, never, ever see me!'

Jim's face was uncomprehending. 'Why should you see yourself? Why should you see your own ghost?'

'Why shouldn't I? I'm living _now_, and working _now_ in all the places where I should see myself. If there's anyone to see at all, it should be me. I've looked – under the counter at night, in my old corner of the workshop in the day, but I'm never there.'

'Peter…'

'You get it, don't you, Carrie? I only see the ghosts of people who are alive. I don't see dead people. I don't see me, because I'm not alive.

'I should have died in Lyra's rooms, seven years ago. When I woke up, after Miss Morley shot me with her gun, and the men in the mirror armour reflected the beam back to her and killed her, Lyra didn't understand what I was saying to her. She hadn't seen any of the things that I had seen; not Miss Morley, not her gun, nor any men in armour. She thought – no, she _knew_ – that Miss Morley had died a week earlier, in a fire in Cropredy. I worried a lot about it at the time, and I wrote it all down…'

'I read it. I didn't understand it, though.'

'Neither did I. But I do know this: Ever since then, I've felt out of place. Not settled. Especially since Lyra died. I was glad to get away to Moore's in Brum, but I should have known better. In the end I had to come back here. I think I'd have come back even if Master James hadn't died.'

I stood up, walked slowly over to the window and looked out onto the street. I didn't want Jim and Carrie to see my face.

'I'm dead. I must be. If I were alive, I'd be able see myself. I should have died then, but something prevented it, and I've been carrying on as if I were alive, but I'm not really. I'm dead'

'You've got Viola. How could she be here with you now if you were dead?'

'She must be dead too. I'm like Charlie James, born without a soul. I was supposed to be burned, like he was, but something went wrong and I'm still alive, only I'm not. Not properly. No wonder Jane left me. She must have known.'

I did not hear Jim and Carrie leave the room, nor would I have been able to see them through my bleared vision. It was not Viola's fault that she could not reassure me, for who can comfort the dead?

Cole Porter's _Night and Day_ and _So in Love_ are both quoted without permission.


	13. I Overhear a Conversation

__

I Overhear a Conversation

We decided that there were two things we really had to do. Neither of them would help with my main problem, but there it was. I could think of nothing that would do any good, and neither could Carrie or Jim.

No, the first thing was to do something about our friend Elias Cholmondley. We talked about him, when Carrie had made a pot of tea and found some more only-a-little-bit-stale cakes in the larder and we'd moved into the back garden and I was feeling better, as you do after some hot sweet India tea and a fairly fresh piece of raspberry sponge.

'It's got to be him who's messing about with your things, hasn't it?' said Jim.

'It's obvious,' said Carrie.

'You're right,' said I.

'Did you get a padlock, like I said?'

'No, Jim, I told you. I couldn't do that. Not in Master's house.'

'What do you think he's looking for? Assuming it's him, of course.'

'The twonkies, I suppose. Or maybe the alethiometer. That's more likely, actually, unless he's simply after the money.'

'Do you think that's what he's after?' asked Carrie. 

'Well, he won't get the money _or_ the alethiometer,' I replied. 'Hurst's has got it and the cash is in the office safe, unless Mistress put it in the bank.'

'Has he got the key to the safe?'

'It's on a combination lock and Mistress is the only one who knows the right numbers.'

'You sure? She could have written them down somewhere. Like in the accounts book?'

'What?'

'Yes – I read it somewhere. People write a fake transaction in the book, and the amount is the combination, or it's hidden inside it.'

'What happens when the auditors come to look at the books? The plusses and minuses won't balance.'

'Oh, you put another fake transaction in that fixes it.'

'What's that got to do with Elias Cholmondley raiding my drawers and cupboards?'

'Nothing at all. It's an interesting idea, though.'

'Jim!' said Carrie. 'You're not helping!'

'Yes, I am.'

'No, you're not.' She poked him hard in the ribs. 'What you've got to do, Peter, is bring your things here. We'll hide them for you.'

'All of them?'

'Except for that silly little green man, yes. I'm not having him in my house!'

'Hmm…'

I took a lot of persuading, but in the end I agreed with Carrie, even though I suspected the real reason was that she wanted to play with the Sony. All right, then. That was the first thing we really had to do. The second…

'You and me are going to track down that nasty little man. We're going to find out what he's getting up to when he's not in the shop. Do you still not know where he lives?'

'No.'

'There's no record? Wouldn't Mistress James know?'

'If she did, she wouldn't tell me.'

'Has stuff gone missing before?'

'It's not gone missing this time.'

'You know what I mean.'

'No. I mean, yes, I know what you mean, and no, stuff hasn't gone astray. He may be a funny cove, but up until now I'd have said he was an _honest_ funny cove.'

'All right. Here's what we're going to do…'

I decided later that Jim must have seen too many gangster films, or read too many penny-dreadfuls of the _True Crime_ variety but, just the same, his idea was a good one – or so it seemed at the time – and it sounded like fun.

In those days there was something called Early Closing. What that meant was that all the shops in a town would shut for the afternoon one day in the middle of the week, usually Wednesday or Thursday. The logic behind it was that these were quiet times anyway, so not much trade would be lost and the counter staff and floorwalkers wouldn't have to be paid for that half-day if the shop wasn't open. As they were expected to work all day Saturday, when the office-workers had the day off, it sort of evened up. Of course, this arrangement only made any sense if _all_ the shops in a town closed at the same time. If one of them broke ranks, as it were, and carried on trading while the others were shut, it would steal their business. I suppose that's what happened in the end – there was too much to gain by breaking the unwritten rules that bound the trades federations together and so eventually Early Closing died out, as did the federations. It was all to meet customer demand, they said.

Anyway, if you read the other story I wrote you'll remember that James and James closed at lunchtime on Wednesdays. Elias Cholmondley went… wherever it was he went, and I carried on in the workshop with Master James. Then, on Saturday, I had a half-day and went over to Jordan College to see the Professor in her rooms and Mister Cholmondley kept on behind the counter. I don't think Master James had any half-days.

That following Wednesday was dull and cloudy with a hint of rain in the air. Just past midday, I heard Elias lock up the front of the shop, followed by the bang of the counter flap falling as he passed through it and the softer sound of the rear door closing against its baize pads. 'I'm off now,' he called up to Mistress James in the office. I heard him brushing past the tallboy at the foot of the stairs, the kitchen door opening and closing and then, less distinctly, the outside door.

__

Right.

I put down my tools, and removed my leather apron. Underneath it I was dressed in ordinary street clothes, rather than the shirt, neckerchief and trews I usually wore in the workshop. I was glad the weather wasn't too hot, else I'd have roasted to death in there. Opening and closing the workshop door as quietly as I could I slipped out into the corridor and followed Elias out of the back of the house, pausing at the kitchen window to make sure that he'd left the yard. I counted thirty seconds under my breath, then opened the back door, crossed the yard on tiptoe and through the gate which led into the alleyway beyond. This was the first hard part. Which way would Elias have gone – left or right? I looked to the left. Nothing. Then to the right, and saw the signal I was hoping for. Hugging the wall, I ran softly to the end of the alleyway. 'Where's he gone?' I asked Jim.

'Back towards Cornmarket Street,' he replied. 'You go first!' I set off while Jim stayed on the corner behind me.

That had been Jim's idea; that we should both follow Elias, taking it in turns. That way, if he should look around, he wouldn't keep on seeing the same people behind him. 'We can be the Shoe Lane Irregulars,' Jim had said.

I reached the Cornmarket and looked quickly left and right. It was busy with people and traffic. I couldn't see Elias anywhere. I swore to myself. I looked again. Yes, there he was, outside Clarke's. No… yes, it was him. Jim appeared behind me and touched my right shoulder. 'There, ' I said, pointing, and Jim sauntered out across the road, threading his way between the carts and autobusses as if he had every right to be there, as I suppose he had. 'Do what Jim's doing,' whispered Viola in my ear. 'Don't behave suspiciously, else Elias'll see you or the constables will pick you up for loitering.'

The back of Jim's head disappeared in the direction of St Giles. I caught up with Jim by St Michael's church in time to see Elias head off down Broad Street on the right hand side. I kept to the left and followed him at a distance of fifty yards. Although the clouds were getting steadily thicker and blacker, and the light was failing it was easy to keep him in sight on such a wide thoroughfare. I only hoped he wouldn't be able to see me quite so readily.

Jim and I swapped positions again as Elias reached the end of the Broad. Where would he go now? If he lived in lodgings would he go straight to them, or would he perhaps turn left up Parks Road and spend some time in the museums? Some landladies didn't allow their gentlemen into their rooms before six, I had heard, so he might have some time to kill. Elias stood still on the corner of Broad Street and Parks Road for five minutes, looking around – anxiously, I thought – as if he were waiting for somebody. Every time he did this, Jim or I had to step back quickly behind a lamppost and hope that our sudden movement hadn't caught Elias' eye. This was unlikely, though. People were scurrying to and fro, as if they were trying to do their shopping, or whatever their business was, before the heavens opened and we were deluged with rain. Another scurry or two wouldn't be so very noticeable.

At last the first few spots of rain began to fall. As if that were the signal he'd been waiting for, Elias strode across the road and walked straight into the pub on the opposite side of the road from me – the Kings Arms. Without looking, I stepped out after him, only to collide with a brown-coated Norland nanny, who was piloting the largest perambulator I had ever seen. 'Out of my way, young man!' she said, giving me a disdainful glance. I noticed the crest on the side of the pram, and suppressed a strong inclination to laugh. The Duke of Rutland, indeed! Perhaps Norland's had a fleet of giant baby-carriages specially constructed to permit the sons and daughters of the aristocracy to be taken out for their airings without having to come into too close contact with the likes of Jim and me.

We reached the east side of Parks Road without any further mishap and entered the Kings Arms as inconspicuously as we could. Just in time – for a loud crack of thunder outside and the steadily increasing hiss of rain on the pavement told us that the threatened storm had broken. We were in the vanguard of a sizeable crowd coming in from the wet, so Jim grabbed a two-seater bench and I got us a couple of pints of Director's at the bar and joined him.

The Kings Arms was laid out inside with high-backed oaken benches, separated by deal tables. The benches limited the view and I had no idea where Elias had got to. Ws he in the same bar as us? Or another one? Was he living in the pub; perhaps in a small room upstairs? That might explain why nobody had ever succeeded in finding out where he lived – they would not been surprised at his drinking in a pub, but as for staying there, that was different. Whatever the truth of it, it looked as if we had lost Elias now. A third possibility existed – that he had entered the bar at the front and gone out again at the back. I said as much to Jim.

'We'll have to look in all the bars. But be careful.'

'You go. He'd recognise me straight away, but he's not seen you for years.'

'Right you are.' Jim got up and pushed his way through the impatient would-be drinkers waiting to be served at the bar. I sat back and sipped at my pint and considered our options. We could do nothing; sit tight, drink up and go home. That was if Elias had slipped past us. Or we could try to follow him out of the pub, though that would be tricky, given the number of doors that there were. In that case the chase would be on, just as before. That was it, or so it seemed to me.

Jim returned to the bench. 'Can't see him,' he said, sitting down and picking up his glass. 'We've had it for today. Cheers!' He took a long pull at his pint, not looking as upset about it as he might have done. I knew that Jim didn't have many chances to visit the pub (neither did I) and so we decided to make the best of it.

I had only drunk one pint, I know, but I had been working hard all morning without a break making more of the Bijou Vienna clocks that were, for now, our best opportunity of making enough money to save the shop. I was building a batch of three, to save time, as well as seeing to a couple of repair jobs that had come our way. So, although I'd only had just the one pint, I found that I needed to make a call of nature. The sound of the rain outside probably didn't help. I shoved through the bar and into the passageway behind which led to the lounge and the taproom. The gentlemen's privy was on the left and I walked in, only to find that all the stalls were in use. No matter, there was a cubicle free, so I went in there and, not bothering to shut the door behind me, unbuttoned my trousers. As I stood I heard, though a ventilation grille above the cistern, two men's voices, echoing hollowly past the pipes beyond. One voice was new to me, although also oddly familiar. The other, I knew well. It belonged to Elias Cholmondley.

I've often wondered since about the apparent coincidences that shape our lives, like the one I've just told you about. I've heard it said that there are so many things happening all the time that it's no surprise that so many unlikely events take place every day. It's all down to numbers and probability. Or, to put it another way, if I hadn't taken a mantel clock to Professor Lyra Belacqua's rooms one winter's afternoon and seen her alethiometer, another clockmaker's apprentice would have done so, and maybe her story would not have been so very different in the end. But, a voice in my head says, perhaps it would. Perhaps Lyra would not have clashed so disastrously with her sister. Perhaps neither Lyra nor Elizabeth would have died and, for example, the Boreal Foundation would still be a flourishing concern. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. It's like Doctor Malone said in Bristol; new universes are popping into existence all the time. Some of them are stable, and live. Some are unstable, and die. Some, I suppose, converge back upon each other and join up again and the people who live in the reunited universe never know that they were once divided in two, as I felt myself to be.

Be all that as it may, the gents' privy of the Kings Arms was no place for theological speculations. I did up my trouser buttons, turned round, and shut the cubicle door. Then I took my shoes off and put them down on the tiled floor with their toes facing the door, so that they could be seen from outside if anyone was checking. I stood next to the commode, with my back to the wall and strained my ears to hear what Elias and the other man were saying.

'I'll get it tomorrow night.' That was Elias.

'Make sure you do.' The other voice. Where had I heard it, or something like it, before?

'No, honest, I will.'

'Is it likely he suspects you?'

'He'd be even stupider than I think he is if he didn't. He nearly caught me last week.'

'I told you to be careful!'

'I was. It's a good thing he didn't look in the wardrobe, though.' Elias chuckled.

'What would you have done if he had?'

'What I'm going to do to him anyway!'

'Which is?'

'You know. Don't tell me you don't want him out of the way too, 'cos I know you do.'

'You do?'

'Yes. And I know why.'

'Then you'd better keep that knowledge to yourself, else what happens to him might happen to you too.'

'All right! Keep your hair on, mister. And – ugh! – can't you stop her doing that?'

'I've told you before. It's perfectly natural.'

'It bloody well ain't!'

'Well, Mister bloody Cholmondley, you'll just have to bloody well put up with it, won't you?'

'Not for much longer.'

'For a considerable while longer, if you want to carry on working with me.'

There was a silence.

'Right. That rain's dying down. I'll see you tomorrow night.'

'Here?'

'No. The other place.'

'All right.'

There was the sound of chairs being pushed back over a wooden floor. The conversation had finished. I sat down on the commode, only to be disturbed a few seconds later by a desperate hammering on the cubicle door.

''Ere, mate, 'aven't you finished yet? I'm bursting out 'ere!'


	14. I Meditate upon my Place in the Universe

__

I Meditate upon my Place in the Universe

'You were out a long time, Peter.' Mistress James looked down at me from the top of the stairs. Her face was hidden in the gloom, unreadable.

'Yes, Mistress.'

'What were you doing?'

I couldn't tell her. Not the whole truth, anyway. _What would Lyra do?_

'I had to meet someone.' That was true enough, I hoped.

'Oh.' There was a pause while, I suppose, Mistress James decided whether or not to press me for more information as to my comings and goings.

'You should have told us you were going out. Emily made sandwiches for you.'

'I'm terribly sorry, Mistress.'

'You know we can't afford to go swanning off whenever we feel like it, don't you?'

'Yes, Mistress. I'm sorry, Mistress.'

'Let me remind you that you are still only an employee of the firm of James and James. You are not a free agent and you cannot simply come and go as you please.'

'No, Mistress. I haven't forgotten it.'

'Time is important. We must use it wisely.'

'Yes, Mistress.'

'Hmm. Are you hungry, or did you eat in the tavern?' So she'd smelled the beer and leaf-smoke of the Kings Arms on me.

'I am a little hungry, Mistress.'

'Your sandwiches are in the larder. I suggest that you eat them.' Mistress James turned away and closed the office door behind her. I went down the passageway to the kitchen, where Emily was sitting by the range, peeling potatoes. She looked up resentfully as I entered the room.

'Mum's furious with you. You've really upset her.'

'I know. I'm sorry, Miss James.'

'Your sandwiches are in there.' Emily pointed to the larder door. 'You don't deserve them, shooting off like that and not telling us where you were going.'

I opened the door. There was a plate of ox-tongue sandwiches waiting for me on the shelf, and a glass of milk standing next to it.

'Thank you.'

'Anything could have happened to you. Anything at all. You could have been knocked over in the street, or robbed, or murdered, or anything.'

'Look at her eyes, Peter,' Viola said softly. I sat down on a stool next to Emily and handed her my not very clean handkerchief.

'Thank you,' she said. 

'Here. You have a sandwich too. There's plenty of them.' I offered her my plate.

'I don't like tongue.'

'I'll make you some chai, then.'

'Oh, would you? The kettle's on.'

I made the brew, and handed Emily a mug. We sat companionably side by side, me munching on my sandwiches and drinking my milk, and Emily scraping the spuds in a large pan full of water. I wanted to put my hand on her arm, maybe, and try to make her feel a little better, only Mistress James' words came back to me – _What would you like to do with your property? _– and I knew that I could not.

Jim came over later that evening and collected my things; all except for Yodatm and_ The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky_. 'Are you sure he's not after this?' said Jim, looking at the little brown volume. There's no daemons in it – it might be just the kind of stuff he likes to read, if you catch my drift.'

'I don't care,' I said. 'I'm not letting go of it. Look, I'll put it in my jacket pocket and carry it with me. He'll have to get it off me the hard way.'

'I wouldn't put that past him,' Jim said with a grim smile. 

I had told Jim what I'd overheard in the privy of the Kings Arms. 'Dodgy business,' he'd said. 'That grille you heard them through – it was no accident it being there. When the place was built they probably had it put in specially so that they could listen in on heathen plots and anti-Church devilry.'

'From the privy?'

'Nah! That privy was only built on ten years ago! You had to go round the back before, my Dad says. It must have been the other way round. The room Elias and that other bloke were in must have been the room where the agents sat and listened to what was being said in the little bar that used to be where the privy is now.' He thought for a moment. 'Good idea for a story, that!'

'No you don't! Not until all this is over!'

'Oh.' Jim had looked disappointed. 'All right.'

We arranged that I would go down the Botley Road as usual to see Jim and Carrie the following Sunday afternoon.

'Don't forget the brazing kit!' he said. 'I want to see that engine running! You're not coming back here until it is.'

'I won't forget,' I said. When I had seen Jim out of the front door I returned to my room and went to bed. I took out the little brown book and read the story called _The Man and his Gods_ as my candle wore down, guttered and finally flickered into extinction.

Would we be any happier, I've sometimes asked myself, if we were told – by our daemons or some voice in our inner ear – when we were about to do something for the very last time in our lives? Or, alternatively, for the first? Like, 'See that girl over there? You've never seen her before, have you, but one day you're going to marry her.' Or, 'That's the house you'll live in some day.' Or, 'Pottery. You don't know it yet, but that's how you'll earn your living.' Or, instead, 'This is the last time you'll ever see that tree. Or walk down that road. Or say hello to your friend. Or close your eyes.'

I'd been living a dislocated life – removed in Time, disconnected from reality, not properly belonging in the world. In the end, something had to give – the strains in the fabric of the universe that were caused by my existence were too great for it not to tear along the seams, at a weak point. Me, in other words. There was a flaw in the weave of space-time, and it was me. Apply stress to the universe, and I was the point at which the rip would occur. Or, to put it another way, I was a piece of grit, an irritant. The universe could either englobe me in nacre, making me round and smooth and no longer a source of discomfort, or it could expel me, throw me out.

The world had been telling me as much, all this time, through the ghosts. Eventually I came to understand them – why they were there, why I wasn't one of them, why I was the only so-called living person who left no phantom presences in his time-wake to be detected by the sensitive eye.

It all sorted itself out in the end, more or less, or I wouldn't be telling you this story now, but it brings me back to the question I was asking a moment ago. Would it have made any difference to me if I had known, as I closed the back gate of the yard behind me and walked down the alleyway and turned into New Inn Hall Street, how many last things I was saying goodbye to? Or, what I was about to do, and see, for the very first time?


	15. I Cause a Great Deal of Trouble to my Fr...

_I Cause a Great Deal of Trouble to my Friends_

_ I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you._

William Shakespeare –_ Twelfth Night_

This account that I've been writing about the way my life went after Master James died and I took his place – as if I could! – in the workshop of James and James, Fine Clocks and Instruments; it's very important to me. Important as a record of those times, and what happened then, and what I felt, and what the people around me went through. Looking back over it now, as I sit in my room, scratching at the pages of this exercise book, writing the words that you (by some extraordinary accident of chance) are reading, I'm tempted to give up. I'm not very good at writing, let's be honest. Give me some decent tools and materials, a place to work and a job to do, and I'll do it. I see, of course, that that is what I'm doing now – a job of work. My tools now are pen and ink and paper, my materials are my life, and the lives of those I know and have known; the job is to put my story down on paper. But it's different, somehow, from making or mending a clock. Brass and iron remember, and do not change. They can be relied upon. Memory is inherently unreliable, and what appears to be significant or profound today may turn out to be merely trivial or banal tomorrow. How can I tell what I should set down and what I should leave out?

Oh well, I'll plug on. It's my duty, to use an unfashionable word. I'll do the best I can – even though I know it's not very good – to describe the events that took place that Sunday, and over the course of the unreliable days that followed it. I know I'm going to miss out much that is vital, and include things that are of no importance. I'm sorry.

Let it be recorded, then, that I caught the Botley autobus at twenty-five to twelve that Sunday morning, and that it was a fine day in July, with the grass growing strong and tall in the lawns and the roses flourishing in the beds of the gardens that I could see from the top deck of the 'bus. Say also, that the clouds were skidding wildly across the sky and that the wind was shaking the trees, creating a constant background shush of sound. Finally, I must write down that I was feeling cheerful and light-hearted and I was looking forward to seeing my friends and finally getting the motor of Jim's Ridgeworth Steamer running.

'Have you got the kit?' Jim shouted from the back of the house as Carrie let me in at the front door. I put my bag down with a metallic crash of tools.

'Yes, of course,' I replied.

'Brazing rods?'

'Yes. And the carbide. And the water tank and the pipes. What do you take me for?'

Jim smiled. 'Peter, son of William, smith of high renown throughout all the land of Nod! Wise is he, and skilled in all the manifold arts of metal! Ugly is he also and laborious to look upon, but yet good of heart withal! Yeah, verily, shall his praises be sung from the Crafthalls of Marshall even unto the Emporia of Snelgrove!'

I laughed. 'Novel going well?'

'Not bad, my liege.'

'Then put some water in there, Jim, son of Olaf the Lofty, and let's get cooking!'

Jim filled the tank, I assembled the gear and carefully added a pound or so of carbide to the tray. Then I hauled the whole lot over to the car, which Jim had moved until it was standing right next to the back of the house, and put everything together. Jim had the safety plug ready, so I pumped up the air tank and pressed the plunger that added water to the carbide. A hissing sound from within told me that the generator was running, so I opened both the gas and the air valves a little and pointed the nozzle away from myself while Jim lit a lucifer and held it under the jet. With a pop! the gas-air mixture ignited and a brilliant white acetylene flame appeared. It was only an inch or so long, so I pumped up the air pressure a little more and opened the valves wider. Ah! That was it! A six-inch jet of incandescence shot out of the burner. I put my eye-shields on and signalled Jim to look away, for the sake of his eyesight.

'Here we go!' I cried. Holding the brazing rod in one hand and the burner in the other, I made quick work of fixing the plug back in the boiler. It was not the kind of task a clockmaker usually has to do as part of his everyday work, but Master James believed in what he called a "well-rounded education", and that included welding, cutting and brazing with a calcium carbide torch.

When I had finished – and the whole job only took five minutes – Carrie gave us tea, while the car's boiler cooled down. Then we filled her up. We weren't going to make the same mistake as last time. That's why Jim had moved the vehicle so close to the house, as I had to explain later. He had only a short length of hose, and to fill the car up using a bucket and funnel would have taken all afternoon. Instead, all we had to do was connect one end of the hose to the cold tap and hold the other end over the car's water tank inlet. Once that was full, I turned the tap that fed the water into the boiler (a pump would do it once the motor was running) and let it fill until it ran out of the overflow. Shut the taps and valves off, fill the burner with fuel, and we were set. I pressurised the naphtha, opened the tap and with a gentle (this time!) burp, it caught. Blue flames played over the steam tubes in the boiler and after a short while we heard the bubbling sound of water starting to heat up, like a kettle makes when you first put it on the range.

I was watching the steam pressure gauge – the one that Jim had told me to fix a few weeks earlier – and Jim was keeping an eye on the naphtha feed, making sure that the flames were burning steadily. We were both concentrating on what we were doing and so it took a while for either of us to notice that Carrie was knocking on the kitchen window. Jim heard it first.

'What is it?' he called out. 'We're busy!'

Carrie kept on knocking.

'Can't come now,' I said.

Carrie knocked for a bit longer and then opened the window. 'Come in now, both of you,' she said.

'What?' said Jim.

'Now?' said I.

'Not likely!' said Jim.

'I should coco,' I added.

Carrie looked both angry and very upset. 'You've got to come in now!'

'No!'

'No!'

'Please,' said Carrie. _Pleaded_, I should say. Jim and I turned to her. 'Please. You've got to.' There was an unmistakable note of anguish in her voice.

'But we're right in the middle of getting the car going!'

'Jim,' I turned to him. 'She means it.'

'You go, then.'

'No!' It was almost a scream. 'Please, please, it's got to be both of you. Please, come in now.'

'Women!' said Jim under his breath, but he got up from where he was crouching by the side of the car and went into the kitchen. I followed him. 'What is it, love?' Jim asked.

'Follow me into the front,' was all she said. It was then that I noticed what was wrong…

'Jim. Do as she says. It's Carrie's life,' I said urgently, and she nodded miserably. All three of us went into the front room. There were two men in there.

'Good girl, Carrie. Well done. Shut the door behind you, there's a dear.' It was Elias Cholmondley. He was standing by the front window of the bed-sitting room, wearing that eternal, hideous smirk on his face. In his arms Elias was holding Adrian, Carrie's daemon, and around Adrian's throat was a length of hessian twine which Elias was twisting in his hand so that it cut deeply into the poor creature's fur.

If that had been all there was to worry about, Jim and I would have leapt across the floor, seized Elias by the neck and squeezed the life out of him before another second had passed. We would have done it with joy, with relish, not caring about what retribution the law might have taken on us. We would have told the jury the truth if we had been brought to trial; and no jury, either then or now, would have convicted us. Not even the sheer horror and outrage that Elias' violation of Carrie and Adrian was causing us, making us shudder with cold despite the sunlight that streamed in through the window, would have made us hesitate for a second.

'Goodsir Peter Joyce.' It was the other man. I knew straightaway, by his voice, that he was Elias' co-conspirator, the man who I had heard in the Kings Arms the Wednesday before. He stood on the other side of the window from Elias, holding his daemon in one arm. She was, I noticed, otak-formed, like Mister Hurst's and for one wild moment I wondered if he was the pawnbroker, come to make his claim to the alethiometer absolute. But no, this man could see perfectly well and, although he was of similar height and build to Mister Hurst, they were not the same. He was much younger, for a start and although his voice nagged me with its familiarity, it was not the pawnbroker's that it reminded me of.

There were two of them, and two of us. We could have charged them and, fuelled by anger, overcome them and rescued Carrie's Adrian. But we did not. For in his free hand the man held, pointed steadily at my chest, the gun. The anbaric gun. The gun that ran off Dust. The gun that Arthur Shire had left in my charge and which, to avoid its being found by Elias Cholmondley, I had given to Jim and Carrie for safe keeping. I felt sick with anger and guilt. I had put my friends in the most appalling danger; and for what?

'You all know what this is,' said the other man. I nodded. 'Good. Then you will, while my friend here keeps his hand on this young lady's daemon, all sit down of the floor over there by the door. Mister Cholmondley and myself will occupy the other side of the room. You will appreciate that by keeping you close together, I make all of you an easy target. Would you go there now please, slowly and with no sudden movements.'

We shuffled around the room to the door and crouched on the floor. Each of us, except Carrie of course, held our daemons tightly in our hands.

'Good.' The stranger was standing by the fireplace now while Elias remained in his place by the window.

'Please,' begged Carrie, 'can I have him back?'

The man thought for a few seconds, then nodded. 'Go on,' he said to Elias.' You'll need your hands free.' Elias untied the cord and let Adrian fall to the floor. He ran over to Carrie and she gathered him up into her arms with a grateful sob.

'Say thank-you to the nice man.' The gun pointed.

'Thank you, Mister Cholmondley,' Carrie gulped.

'Good girl, Carrie,' Elias said again. 'You're learning some manners.' He grinned even more hatefully than before. I could never forget my nightmares of him – the pain, the humiliation – and both Viola and I felt again the agony of our remembered torment.

Through my mind, the thought was running – _I have been here before_. Yes, before, in Lyra's study, when Miss Morley had stood holding another gun like this one and threatened us with extermination. That time I had charged at my attacker, and had been killed or, alternatively, saved from death by those mysterious armoured figures that had come between me and her, causing her to die instead of me. But that was all in another world, in another time, and here I was, neither properly alive nor dead, facing death yet again.

'Keep still, Peter,' said Viola.

'Excellent advice,' said the man with the gun.

'What's all this about?' asked Jim. 'What do you want?'

'Many things. Things which your pathetic attempts at concealment will not keep from me. I have most of them already, now.'

_Most of them._

'I suppose you followed me from Shoe Lane.'

'I suppose we did.'

'And what do you want of mine that you haven't got?'

'Oh, let's see. For a start, there's a theological instrument which properly belongs to the Church, not you.'

I ought to write down here that the man's voice was as calm as an oil-smoothed sea throughout everything that took place in Jim and Carrie's house that terrible afternoon.

'You won't get the alethiometer. It's safe.'

'Won't I? When I'm free to search through all your belongings at my leisure perhaps I'll find out where it is.'

'You'll be lucky.'

'I am lucky. Very lucky.' The man stroked his otak-daemon with his fingers. The gun did not move. Then something happened which I did not, for a moment, understand. There was a flicker of light under the man's fingers and, just for a moment, I saw pale wings fluttering. I blinked. 

'Let us see how very lucky I am.' _That voice_. Who was it? _Who?_

The fingers moved and again I saw the beat of wings. 'I am _this_ lucky. Watch.' The man threw his arm into the air and the bird – a thrush – which lay upon it darted about the room before settling on his shoulder. The otak had gone.

For seconds Jim, Carrie and I sat paralysed. This was like nothing we had seen before. Only we had, lots of times. Lots of times.

'She… changed,' Jim said at last.

'You are not as stupid as you look, young Jim. Indeed, my fair Lillian has just changed form.'

'But she can't have!'

'Whereas you, fat girl, are every bit as dim as you appear to be.'

'Bastard! Don't talk to Carrie like that.' said Jim. The gun pointed briefly at him, then returned to me. The man's face twitched for a moment.

'It… it ain't right. You're not natural,' said Carrie, with a sob.

'But indeed I am! Large as life, and twice as natural, as they say.'

I'd had time to think. Perhaps my encounter with Miss Morley's fake cat-daemon at the Boreal Foundation office in Cropredy, seven years before, had prepared me for this moment. I was less upset, I think, by the sheer strangeness of this man than Jim and Carrie were. 'I know who you are,' I said.

'You do? Then who am I, Mister Joyce?'

'You are Master James' brother. The one who got into trouble with the Church. The one who has cost us fifteen thousand pounds and nearly lost us the shop too.' I was trembling with anger. 'You have tried to wreck everybody's lives…'

'Oh, no, not everybody's lives. Just your life, Peter Joyce. That is all I want.'

I could see the family resemblance now, but it was as if my master's features had been twisted by some mad puppeteer into a caricature of the man I had known and loved. His kindness and intelligence were gone; and in their place were substituted indifference and cunning. This man would be unpredictable, dangerous and cruel. I would have, somehow, to keep one step ahead of him if I were to save my life, and the lives of Jim and Carrie. Perhaps…

'What are you getting out of this?' I asked Elias. 'He's not natural, you know. You said so yourself.'

'When?'

'In the Kings Arms last Wednesday.'

'How do you know that?'

'You're not the only one who can follow people without being seen, you know.'

Elias glanced over to Mister James. 'He's seen us, Martin!' _So that was the man's name_. I jumped in.

'Yes, Martin James, I've seen you. Did you think I walked in here without any support from my friends? Do you think that there are only the three of us here in this house?'

Elias looked worried. 'Do you want me to look outside? There could be the constables out there or anyone!'

Martin James slowly shook his head. 'No, Elias. There is nobody else. Peter is trying to bluff us. He's only playing games. Whereas we are not playing any kind of game.'

The sun shone, the clouds sprinted across the sky, the trees hissed in the wind.

'Bad blood, Mistress called it,' I said 'I didn't know what she meant then, but I do now. You're a freak, Martin James, with your unsettled daemon.' I remembered what Lyra had said about Miss Morley, all those years ago. 'You're not a real person. You have no sense of moral truth. You've not grown up.'

'But I have, Peter Joyce.' Martin James smiled sardonically. 'I've grown up _special_. Do you know why your daemon doesn't settle until you have passed puberty?'

'It's part of growing up, like I said. Everybody's does it.'

'Except for yours,' Jim interrupted.

'Shut up. I won't warn you again.' That twitch of the face… I prayed that Jim would have the sense to keep quiet.

'You lay off him,' said Carrie. Martin James ignored her and turned his attention to me..

'You are so ordinary, Peter Joyce, so conventional of thought, so dull. What I was asking was; why do children's daemons have the ability to change form, when so-called adults' do not?'

'I… I don't know.'

'Then I will tell you. What is it to be a child? What is its essence? It is this – it is freedom. Freedom to love, hate and act with a joy, an abandonment that adults can only dimly remember, if at all. Do _you_ remember it?'

'Sort of.'

'"Sort of." No, you don't. That freedom was taken from you when your daemon settled. You became inhibited and slow in your actions. You lost that freedom. You fell from grace.

'I did not lose it. I did not Fall. I can do what I like, when I like, and my dear Lillian will not prevent me. That's one advantage I have over you, Peter Joyce. But there's another reason why your daemon can change form when you are still a child, and it is this: survival. A fixed daemon is vulnerable to physical attack. A daemon that can change form at will can escape from danger more easily than one that is constrained to only one shape. Attack me now, and my Lillian will simply fly away to safety, whereas the girl's dog-daemon was easily caught and held by my friend Elias here. This is God's way of ensuring that children will live to reach that state which some call maturity and become breeders, able to produce children of their own. See!'

And Lillian blurred in his hand, changing shape – eagle, otak, mouse, butterfly, cat, otak, dormouse, hamster, otak.

'She prefers this form, as it happens.'

I felt sick. Not just because Martin James was so alien, but because I could clearly see that he would be absolutely ruthless in his dealings with us. He would not be persuaded, or cajoled, or bullied. Have you ever tried to make a child do something he would rather not? Have you ever faced a child's absolute determination? It is only the difference in size and strength between us that allows we adults to dominate our children. Now imagine a child in the body, and with the strength of, a fully-grown man and you may begin to see how formidable our adversary was, and how much he frightened us.

'What do you want, Martin James?'

'Your life, as I said.'

'Kill me, then.'

'Oh, no. I'm not going to kill you. That would be murder.'

'Are you going to have him do it?' I indicated Elias, still standing by the window.

'And have his blood on my, excuse me, conscience? That would be a grave sin, Peter Joyce. A mortal sin.'

Elias looked disappointed.

'We both want you to die, Peter Joyce. The good Elias Cholmondley; because you have insulted him and treated him like a servant for all these years. Me, because you stand in the way of my inheriting the well-found business of James and James. And also because you stand in the way of my masters recovering the alethiometer and this useful weapon.'

'Your masters?'

'God's Holy Church, yes.'

'But Mistress James said you got into trouble with the Church! She called it an ecclesiastical matter.'

'And so it was. A Papal indulgence for my, er, difference, did not come cheap. You would not have had me excommunicated, or burned at the stake, would you?'

'I certainly would, you bastard freak,' said Jim, suddenly. 'You creep, you changeling, you monster, you abomination, you nasty piece of shit…'

'No Jim!' Carrie cried, anguished. 'Don't make him angry!'

She was too late. The muzzle of the gun moved from me over to Jim and Martin James squeezed the trigger. A lance of the purest indigo fire blazed from the barrel for the merest fraction of a second. A fraction, I say, but it was enough to blind us all, except Martin James, who had, I suppose, closed his eyes when he fired. Jim made no sound, but I felt him slump against the wall next to me. The horrible smell of roasted human flesh insinuated itself into my nostrils and I retched. I dared not move – none of us did. There we sat in a row up against the base of the wall – Viola and me, Carrie and Adrian, and Jim. Carrie screamed.

_Oh no! Tattycoram! _

Ah – but there she was, lying in Jim's lap. Martin James had not killed him, then. Carrie flung her arms around him and her Adrian jumped into Jim's lap, next to Tattycoram, and snuggled down with her.

Martin James' voice was unchanged – calm, deliberate, assured and in full control, despite the dreadful thing he had just done.

'Oh dear. My hasty temper. Still, can't be helped. It'll be a useful lesson in politeness for you, fat girl, and you, Peter Joyce. I see that the impetuous young man's shoulder is somewhat charred. It will probably heal in time, given the appropriate medical attention. And see! This weapon is in full working order. I congratulate you, Peter Joyce, on looking after it so well for me. Now, let's get back to business. I have this gun – it was used in the Great Rebellion by the way, by one of the heretic Asriel's henchmen. It is wonderful to be able to acquire it for the use of Mother Church. It is believed to have a rather useful property, you see. That is; in addition to its ability to silence dirty mouths.'

Carrie was rigid in shock. She had not yet begun to weep. Neither had I. Martin James pointed the gun straight at my heart.

'Now – _where is the alethiometer?_'

'Tell him, Peter,' said Viola.

'I haven't got it.' The gun twitched.

'Who has it, then?'

I hesitated. Mister Hurst had been very good to us. Was betrayal any way to repay him for his kindness?

'Who?'

'If you shoot me, you'll never know.'

'Why do you think I would shoot _you_?'

_Carrie_. He would hurt Carrie, too. I knew bitter despair then, sour in the stomach and foul-tasting in the mouth. If only Lyra had been here, as she was before when we faced Miss Morley! She would have known what to say and do so much better than I did.

'It's at Hurst's the pawnbroker's. The ticket is in my wallet, back at the shop.'

'Lillian?' The otak-daemon leapt from Martin James' arm and ran over to where we sat. She grabbed at Viola with her barbed claws, pulling her head around and forcing her to look directly into her eyes. I cried out with the pain – the claws digging deep into our flesh – that it gave us, and the horror of the unexpected contact with Martin James' daemon.

'Good, Peter Joyce. Very, very good. You are telling me the truth. Good heavens, if it weren't that you're a witness to what I just did to our mutual friend Jim I'd almost be tempted to let you go with no more than a simple ticking-off. What a pity! Come here now, Lillian.'

Moth-formed, Lillian returned to Martin James' arm. I was shaking with fear and disgust.

'Splendid. Super. Well, Elias, that only leaves one little thing left to do, and then we can go home. I shall pop in to Shoe Lane first to have a few words with my sister-in-law, I think, about a little matter of an inheritance.'

'Can I kill him now, Martin?'

'No, Elias, you silly boy. I told you. We are not murderers. Neither of us is going to kill Peter Joyce. Neither of us is going to _need_ to kill him. He is going to save us that trouble by killing himself.'


	16. I am Cast Adrift in Time

_I am Cast Adrift in Time_

_Time passes. Listen! Time passes._

Dylan Thomas - _Under Milk Wood_

I smiled, for some reason. Bravado, I suppose. 'Why on earth would I want to do that?' I asked. 

'Why does anybody kill themselves? Why, because they believe that their lives are no longer worth living, of course.' 

'What are you going to do to him, Martin?' Elias' puzzlement would have been comic under different circumstances. Martin James ignored his question. 

'Take his daemon from him, would you please, Elias?' 

'What?' 

'Just as I said. Do not annoy me with your obtuseness, young man. Just do as I say. Take his daemon.' 

_What? Take Viola away from me?_ I could not speak, so great was my surprise. Elias took a step in my direction. 

'No! Not like that! Do you want him to attack you, Mister Cholmondley? Stay where you are.' 

Martin James spoke directly to me. 

'Peter Joyce. You know that I will not hesitate to use this weapon again. It is God's tool to use as He wishes as, indeed, am I. If I fire the gun at you, or poor old Jim or the overweight baggage he lives with, it will be a Holy act, a Righteous act, for I will be doing God's will. I have consecrated myself to God, do you see, and I am His willing slave. 

'I cannot commit a sinful act, for I am God's agent, doing God's work; and in God there is no sin. Do you understand me? Have I made myself clear to you?'

'You mean that you can do whatever you feel like, and God won't mind?'

Martin James laughed. 'Oh, Peter, it's so much better that that! I cannot do anything that God would need to forgive. I have not Fallen, remember? My Lillian is the proof of it. Did our Lord not say, "Suffer little children to come unto me" and did He not teach that you might not enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless you became as a child? I am God's child.' 

_He believes everything he is saying. He is completely insane. _I knew then that our situation was hopeless.

'Now, Peter Joyce, tell your daemon – she is a lovely thing, isn't she? – to run across the floor on her dear little paws and leap into the arms of our faithful Mister Cholmondley. Otherwise…'

'What are you going to do to her?'

'I promise you, Peter, on my word of honour as a gentleman, that I am not going to harm her. I also promise you, as a servant of God, that I will hurt you and your friends very much indeed if you do not do as I tell you. You _know_ that I mean what I say.'

I had no idea why I was being asked to do this horrible thing. I was revolted by the idea of Elias Cholmondley manhandling my beautiful Viola. What could I possibly do to stop him?

'Peter,' said Viola.

'Yes?'

'Let me go to him. I will not let him hurt you or me.'

'What if he molests you?'

'I will die. I will choose to die. I will slice my throat open with my claws.'

So that was Martin James' plan… 'You're going to make Viola kill herself, and then I'll die too!'

'No, Peter Joyce. That is not what I intend at all, although it would certainly fulfil one of my ambitions – to see you dead. Now; let her go!'

'Please, Peter.'

I have wondered since whether Viola knew what intentions were in Martin James' mind. I did not think to ask her at the time, and it would have made little difference in the end. I picked her up and held her face to mine. We kissed; and I lowered her slowly to the floor. She took one step forward, turned to me and whispered, 'I love you,' and ran, as she had been told, over to Elias Cholmondley's waiting arms. He stooped and picked her up, and as his hands touched her I suffered such a terrible surge of revulsion and sickness that I thought I would die of it.

All this time, in the world outside Jim and Carrie's house – the world of sane, kind, real people – the clouds were flying and the wind was rising; rattling the windows, moaning in the chimneys and casting a soft covering blanket over all other sounds. _All other sounds_. There was something nudging the back of my mind, trying to attract my attention…

Elias grinned wider than ever as he held my daemon in his cupped hands. He stroked the fur of her back with an obscene familiarity, and I vomited green bile onto the bare floorboards in front of me, acrid-tasting in my mouth and burning in my throat. _Burning_. Carrie cried out aloud in horror and shame.

'Stop it!' said Martin James to Elias Cholmondley, his face flushed with anger. Elias blenched in sudden fear and held absolutely still. Then – and I realised exactly what was going to happen even as Martin James raised the arm which held the gun – he turned.

He turned, until he was facing a point on the wall exactly half-way between Elias and me. Then he pressed the trigger of the gun, but instead of releasing it immediately as he had before, when he used the weapon to mutilate Jim, he swept the hissing, scorching beam of destructive light down from the level of the ceiling until it reached the floor. The shabby wallpaper crackled, smoked and flared in the deadly purple light, and the bricks behind it cracked and shattered. Slowly, the beam descended and as it came down it cut through the invisible thread that joined Viola to me.

And Severed us.

I have written that I had, at the last moment, realised what Martin James' intentions were. I had no time to do anything to thwart those intentions and, even if I had, I could have acted no differently. As it was in Lyra's study before, so it was at Jim and Carrie's house now. Time had run out for us.

The cutting beam swept down and severed Viola from me. Instantly, the scene changed. Martin James, Elias Cholmondley, Jim and Carrie; they all disappeared. Was this death? Was this what Martin James had intended to do to us? No, that could not be right. He had said that I would be moved to kill myself, because I would find that my life was no longer worth living. 

The room, as I say, was empty of people apart from myself, but there was nevertheless one other creature there. I beckoned to the squirrel that was sitting on the window-ledge, next to the door. The trees swayed in the wind behind her. 'Viola! Here!' She rubbed her paws together and looked up. There was no recognition in her eyes, no sign of intelligence behind them. 'Here!' I gave a low whistle, as if I were calling a dog. The squirrel's ears pricked up, and her tail too, but she made no move towards me. 'Viola!' There was no response.

I stood up carefully, and walked with slow footsteps across the floor to the window. The squirrel was very alert now, ready to run away if any danger threatened her. I held out my hand out in front of me; offering it as I had all those times before when Viola and I had wanted to be close to one another with her fur next to my skin, touching it. Trembling, I let my hand rest on the window-sill next to the squirrel and she, after a moment's consideration, stepped onto it. I held her in my hands, feeling her warmth, her quick heartbeat, her gentle breathing. I was daring to feel a little hope. Surely a wild squirrel would not have let a human being come so close to her, let alone permit him to pick her up and hold her imprisoned in his hands? Perhaps my fears would be proved false, and Viola – the real Viola – would make herself known to me again. It was possible – maybe likely, even – that Martin James had been wrong and that the deadly ray of light from the gun had not cut Viola and me apart for ever, but only disrupted the bond between us for a little while. I opened my hands and tried to look into the eyes of the creature who rested there. Perhaps she would look back into my eyes, and know me, and we would be restored to one another…

Then the squirrel excreted a pellet onto the palm of my left hand, and I know that all my hope was in vain – no more than wishful thinking. This creature who looked like my Viola was only a common animal. That was all.

I might have squeezed my hands together then, crushing the life from this _thing_, with its diabolical resemblance to my lost daemon. A great gulf of horror and despair opened beneath my feet. It would be the easiest thing in the world to give up now and throw myself into it, seeking oblivion in death. Why didn't I do that, faced as I was with the loss of all that made me human? I cannot say for sure. Those were dark times, and darker times yet were to come, though I did not know it then. One thing stopped me; staying my hand. I could not kill this innocent creature, for the sake of the being whose form she wore. To do so would have been to accept the mockery of it – that Viola could have gone from me, but that her shape would remain.

There was something else, though, now I think of it. It was clear to me what Martin James had meant to do. He had intended that, with my daemon severed from me and my essential humanity destroyed, I would seek release in death and save Elias and him the inconvenience of killing me themselves. I would be damned forever in Hell if I was going to let them have their way so easily. And there was yet another thing. Where were they? Where was everyone? Had I fainted, and been left behind? But why would Jim and Carrie do that, unless they had been forced to leave, at gunpoint, by Martin James?

That made no sense. Neither he nor Elias would be so stupid as to disappear without making sure that I had been finished off – or finished myself off. It is only in story-books of the most improbable kind that the villain explains the plot in lengthy detail to the hero whom he has captured, and then walks off to leave him to die in a vat of boiling oil or something similar. Of course, the hero always escapes – "in a single bound he was free" – and, knowing now what the bad man means to do, stops him (and usually kills him in a big fight at the end). I did not think that Martin James read story-books of that kind – or any kind for that matter.

I looked around the room. It was Jim and Carrie's bed-sitting room all right, although there were a few small differences that I had not noticed before; a chair moved slightly, a picture displaced. Then I looked at the wall behind me. There was that faded wallpaper – but it was undamaged. There were no scorch-marks on it.

How long had I been lying here? Long enough for the wallpaper to have been replaced, and be worn down again by years of damp and neglect? That would explain the other changes in the room – I noticed that the oilcloth on the floor had gone and that there was a worn piece of floral carpet lying there instead. The light fitting had been changed, and the door-handle was made of blue delft rather than brass. 

I did not understand why this should be. I did not see how I could have slept for years and years and woken up in the same place as before, like someone in a fairy-tale. So, rather than give up and kill this false Viola, and then myself, I determined that I would find out what was going on. That was what saved me in the end, I have decided, rather than a desire to thwart Martin James or preserve the life of a wild animal.

I dropped the squirrel into my coat pocket, next to the notebook which I had been meaning to show Jim once we had got the Ridgeworth Steamer running. Oh yes, was the car still standing in the back garden? I opened the door to the kitchen and looked out of the back window. No, the Ridgeworth had gone, together with my tool-bag. That was not so surprising, really. The house's new tenants would have disposed of them years ago. I shook my head and went back to the bed-sitting room. After taking one last look around, I opened the front door of the house and walked out into the street beyond and from there down to the Botley Road. If I had slumbered, or been in suspended animation, for many years I had come back to life on a day that was remarkably similar to the one in which I had brought my tool-bag here. The weather was unchanged – sun and wind and fast-moving clouds. That was not so unusual, though. The weather was often like this.

I crossed to the 'bus stop on the other side of the road and waited. The 'busses ran a frequent service, even on Sundays, so it was not long before one turned up and stopped at my signal. 'Funny,' I thought, 'they've changed the colour of the autobusses.' The ones I were used to were red and green, but this one was painted in blue, with gold coachlines. The 'bus was normal enough inside, though, and the conductor took my threepenny fare to the centre of town perfectly happily. I climbed the stairs to the upper deck and took a seat at the front, by a window. Oxford looked very much the same as it had an hour or two before, or however long it had been. The houses and gardens were unchanged, the trees and shrubs in their gardens grew as colourfully as ever, the grass still needed cutting. Only the presence of rather more advertising hoardings than I remembered – selling cigarillos, ale and washing soap – gave evidence that this was a different Oxford from the one I had woken up in that morning.

(You may be wondering at this point how I was feeling in myself, with my daemon taken from me. Perhaps you are trying to imagine how you would feel if you were put in that situation. I think the best way to describe it is this: have you heard of limb memory? It's what amputees get; they can still feel their missing arm or leg, even though the nerves, muscles and fibres which used to be there have disappeared. It was like that for me. I would keep turning to Viola, or trying to speak to her – for it felt in some way that she was still there – only to find that I had been fooled by a false memory of her presence. Every time this happened, my heart endured a new stab of pain. I cannot keep on coming back to this continuing misery as I tell you my story or it would go on for ever, so please keep in mind what I have said here as you read it. I was incomplete; and tortured by my loss.)

I got off the 'bus in Cornmarket Street. It had been almost empty and I had been glad of that. I was afraid, you see; afraid that the other passengers would see me and know me for what I was, a non-person. Not human. I remembered how it had been when I first encountered Miss Morley in Cropredy. She had carried a false daemon then – a common house-cat – just as I was carrying a squirrel shaped like my lost Viola now, and it had given off a profound sense of _wrongness_, like a bad smell, that had made me feel sick and ill. What if I was doing that now? Would the good citizens of Oxford smell me, seize me, and kill me, as an obscene travesty of a man? Had I too become like Miss Elspeth Morley?

So I did my best not to come too close to anyone else as I turned out of Cornmarket and into Shoe Lane. I was going home, I thought, to a place where I might find shelter and, I hoped, understanding.

I walked past the shop twice before I recognised where I was. I had to stand, and look up at the roofs (for the upper stories of a shop never change, whatever may have been done to the shopfront) to make sure that I was standing in the right place, in front of the right premises. I even walked right up Shoe Lane, to the Talbot Inn, and back down to the shop. Yes, that was about the right distance. The distance was right, but the shop was not. Signwritten on the board above the door, which was now painted blue as the autobus had been, were the words _Shoe Lane Shoes_. And in the windows, standing on their boxes, were dozens of pairs of boots, clogs and sandals. I stared at them, lost in utter confusion.

A woman was passing. She stopped and said to me, 'They're shut, young man. It's Sunday.' She shook her head in amusement.

'Excuse me, Goodwife,' I said. 'Has that shop been there long? Didn't it use to sell clocks?'

'You've got a long memory,' she said. There's not been a clock shop in Shoe Lane for years and years.'

'How many years?' I said. 'I've not been in Oxford for ages, but I used to like looking at the clocks in the window when I was a boy.'

'Oh, I don't know,' she replied. 'Five, six years at least.'

'Thank you,' I replied, and she carried on walking slowly down the lane, her dog-daemon trotting at her heels.

_So_. I had been asleep, or whatever it was, for more than six years, and in that time the Middlewich Bank had reclaimed its mortgage, thrown Mistress James and Emily out and sold the place to a seller of shoes. If it had been a weekday, I would not have been surprised to find Elias Cholmondley still working behind the counter; but what had happened to Martin James? Wouldn't he have inherited the shop instead of me? I still did not understand what had happened.

In a daze, I made my way back up to the Cornmarket. There was no place for me here any more. I did not see how there could be a place for me anywhere in this world. For a wild moment I wondered if I had become a ghost; but the hard paving-stones under my feet and the warm wind in my face and the fact that the woman and I had conducted a perfectly normal conversation convinced me that that could not be so. 

I stopped and looked around. The Cornmarket was nearly deserted, as were all the shopping streets this Sunday afternoon. I was tired – another reason to believe that I was not a ghost – and I needed to sit down. I could find a seat here; or I could go where I always went when I needed to rest, and think. I headed down in the direction of the High Street, Magdalen Bridge and the river.

To my utter astonishment, there was a turnstile at the entrance to the Botanic Garden and I had to give a blue-liveried attendant sixpence before I could gain admission. He was being kept busy, for the Garden was full of people picnicking and walking up and down between the glasshouses and under the trees. It was much more crowded than I remembered. I suppose that people, having paid to get in, stayed around for longer in order to make sure that they got their money's worth. In my time, you wandered into the Garden whenever you felt like it and stayed there for as long or as short a time as you liked, whether it was only five minutes or all day.

This was not what I had wanted to find. I had wanted to be left in peace, to think about what I was going to do. Would I seek help from a doctor, or would I try to make my way in this strange world as I was? Or would I throw myself off Magdalen Bridge and end the struggle for ever? _No. Don't let him win_, said the voice that would once have been Viola's. I passed through the Garden, taking a well-known path, seeking a well-known place.

Where was it? There was the tree, with its low-hanging branches laden with leaves and brushing busily against the ground in the wind, and there was the bench I knew so well, but where was Lyra's plaque? _Oh no_. They could not have done this. _Not this_. Not such a terrible thing as this; to destroy Lyra's memory and sweep away all that was left of her. The tears sprang to my eyes. Funny, wasn't it? This was the first of all the dreadful things that had happened to me that day – or in all those lost years – that had had the power to make me cry.

I looked back towards the bench. A woman was sitting there; a small slight figure. She was wearing a long wine-red cotton frock over black lace-up shoes and her greying hair was tied back at the nape of her neck with a piece of black velvet ribbon. In her hands she was holding a little brown-covered book which she was reading, with her glasses perched half-way down her nose. A shopping bag full of books stood on the bench next to her and her daemon rested in her lap. I approached the woman and gave a low cough to attract her attention.

'Please, Goodwife, could you tell me something?'

She looked up, annoyed at being disturbed in her reading.

'If you like, yes. What would you like to know?'

'There… there used to be a plaque, set in the ground, just there.' I pointed.

'Down there? When was that?' the woman asked.

'A few years ago. Five years, maybe.'

'What sort of plaque? All the trees and shrubs here have tie-on labels attached to them. Do you see? There are no plaques in the ground.'

The woman's voice sounded strangely familiar, as Martin James' had. Whose voice was it?

'No, Goodwife, this was a different kind of plaque. It was a memorial.'

'There's never been a memorial plaque here, so long as I can remember. Who was it a memorial to?' _Whose voice?_

'Lyra. P-professor Lyra Belacqua.' I had become suddenly short of breath. The woman's face turned white with anger.

'Lyra Belacqua? Is this some kind of stupid joke? Did the underscholars give you money to do this? I shall call the Proctors. Who are you? What is your name?'

But I hardly heard her speak. An extraordinary, indescribable, overwhelming feeling of expectancy had overtaken me. I knew now that something very terrible, or marvellous beyond belief, was about to take place. She looked up from her book and for the first time I saw her pale-blue eyes looking into mine, and she saw my face clearly for the first time too, and I saw hers. Our eyes, I say, met and we each saw the other plain; and knew the truth. The wind swirled around us, but the leaves of the trees ceased their motion. The people walked in the garden with their children, but their arms and legs were frozen in mid-stride. The clouds stopped moving in the sky, and the grass beneath our feet became hushed and still.

Lyra spoke first, and her voice was suffused with wonder:

'Peter? Peter Joyce? Peter, can it be you?'


	17. I Survey Time Past

__

I Survey Time Past

__

Time present and time past  
Are both perhaps present in time future,  
And time future contained in time past.  
If all time is eternally present  
All time is unredeemable.  
What might have been is an abstraction   
Remaining a perpetual possibility  
Only in a world of speculation.  
What might have been and what has been  
Point to one end, which is always present.  
Footfalls echo in the memory  
Down the passage which we did not take  
Towards the door we never opened  
Into the rose-garden. My words echo  
Thus, in your mind.  
But to what purpose  
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves  
I do not know.

Thomas Stearns Eliot – _Burnt Norton_

For a moment – one blissful moment – the joy that flooded through me at finding that Lyra was alive washed away the hollow emptiness I was suffering from Viola's loss. I sank to my knees at Lyra's feet. She spoke again, sounding as if she wanted to laugh.

'Sit down here, Peter, next to me. People are beginning to stare!' 

They certainly were. It can't have been a terribly common sight in the Botanic Garden; a respectable middle-aged woman sitting on a bench surrounded by her belongings, with a young man kneeling in front of her, gazing up into her eyes. Not in daytime, anyway. So I rose to my feet, turned to face out into the Garden, and sat down on the bench by Lyra's side. She leaned towards me and kissed me on the cheek, a warm benediction. 'It really is you, isn't it, Peter?'

'Yes, it's me.' My voice sounded choked and artificial in my ears. It sounded empty, like the voice of a man who was not telling the truth. Although the world around us had returned to normal – the trees swaying, the people walking and chatting among themselves (or looking at Lyra and me), children paying tag around the trees and a blue-coated ice-cream vendor pushing his cart up and down the paths – my own feelings of unreality and detachment had, if anything, grown stronger. Was I really me? No, not really.

'But how did you get here? You can't be here; it's not possible.'

'Lyra, it's you… you're the one who isn't possible. You're…' I couldn't say it: _You're dead._ So I said the next thing that came into my head, 'You're looking well.'

'Thank you,' Lyra said, shaking her head. I wondered if she, like me, was trying to clear her mind and come to terms with what had happened. She looked closer at me. 'I wish I could say the same for you, Peter. You look terrible.' Trust Lyra to tell the truth.

'I feel terrible. Sorry.' 

'Peter, what is it? What's wrong? You look… you look half dead.'

__

Half dead. That did it. That was the last straw; all that I could take. I cried out aloud in my pain, clasped Lyra to my chest and let my head fall against her shoulder. My tears ran down the back of her frock, staining its material a darker shade of red. Lyra put her arms around me in turn and we held one other close; each hearing the other's heartbeat, each feeling the other's breathing.

Then we separated. Pantalaimon had been sitting in Lyra's lap all this time – as he had when I first saw her – but now he leapt up onto her left shoulder and whispered in her ear. I waited. Lyra listened intently to what her daemon told her. I knew what he was saying. He knew about me – of course he did. He would have known the truth the moment he saw me without Viola. Now Lyra knew too. What would she do?

'Peter?' Lyra's expression had changed and now, instead of radiating gladness, her face had become drawn and pale. There were lines there – of course there were, after all these years – but they were stretched out tight and engraved more deeply into her skin than I remembered. She looked more frightened, too, than I had ever seen her, even when we had confronted Miss Morley with her gun at Cropredy or later in Jordan College.

There was nothing I could say that would do any good. Nothing that I could do that would make any difference – just one thing only, and that only because I found that I could not speak, or express my bereavement in words. I took the grey squirrel from my jacket pocket and placed it in Lyra's lap. Pantalaimon ran back down her arm and nuzzled the animal's nose with his own. He looked up, and he and Lyra spoke to each other, unheard by me. I sat in rigid misery, with my hands resting on my knees. I had never forgotten that Viola and I had been severed; but the fact of it was, for the first time, being passed on to another person. To make it worse, if that were possible, Lyra was the one person whom I had most wanted to find again, though I still did not understand how this reunion could have come to be. Oh, why did she, of all people, have to be the first to learn of my mutilation? I had wanted to find her again, yes, but as a whole person, a human being and not a half-dead monster.

'Oh, Peter. Oh, Peter, I'm so sorry. So very sorry…' Lyra's tears were flowing now, leaving shining trails running down her cheeks.

We walked slowly out of the Botanic Garden, past the clicking turnstile and the money-collector with his leather satchel. Up the High Street, past the Rose Teashop – that hadn't changed, at least – we went, and turned right into Turl Street, just before the Covered Market. We stopped at the porter's lodge of Jordan College and Lyra showed the man behind the glass window her identity card. There was a visitor's book and she had to sign me in. "Peter Jones," she wrote and I signed my false name next to her neat handwriting with an exaggerated flourish. 'Bars at ten, remember, Professor,' said the uniformed guard, putting the book back in its rack. Had I not been feeling so sick at heart I would have expressed my surprise at this heightened security. In the past I had simply walked past the Porter's lodge and waved. I was reminded of the way that Master James and I had been treated at the Boreal Foundation offices at Cropredy all those years before.

I still knew the way to Lyra's rooms. Of course I did. Just the same, I let her lead me across the quadrangles and through the colonnades and passages which led to her Stair.

As we walked from the Botanic Garden to Lyra's rooms, neither of us had said a word to one another. I, because of my continuing horror and shame; she, I thought, because of her disgust. Her study, once we had climbed those silent stairs and Lyra had unlocked her door and let me in, was mercifully unchanged from the day I had first seen it – and the last, when I had found her dead, with her body slumped across her desk and the blood trickling slowly from one ear.

I sat down in the familiar fireside chair and waited while she bustled about in her little kitchen and made us tea. Soon we were sitting just as we had sat so many times before, drinking chai and eating biscuits. Lyra drank, and placed her cup and saucer down on a mahogany table next to her chair.

'Bolvangar,' she said, at last. 'Bolvangar. There were severed adults there, as well as children. They were… like you and… Viola. Not like the children.'

__

Viola. Lyra had called her Viola, as if my beloved daemon were still with me. Was she mocking me, or offering me hope?

'So much of their life-force was contained in the link between them; the children and their daemons. It was because they weren't Settled. They couldn't be parted without it killing them. Killing them. But it was different for the adults. They could not be killed; there was not enough energy there.'

'Not killed. Just made inhuman,' I croaked. Lyra leaned forward. 

'You are not inhuman, Peter. You are very badly hurt, but you are still a person. You are not dead.'

'I'm as good as dead.' Desperation drove me. 'Would you kill me, Lyra? If I asked you, would you kill me? It would not be murder. It would be a blessing, a kindness. Please, if I asked you?'

Lyra sighed deeply. 'I could not do that. Please, you mustn't ask me to kill you. Instead, tell me how you come to be here. You see, Peter, you're not meant to be here, living and breathing. You died, here in my study, seven years ago.'

Seven years ago? None of this was making any sense to me. 'I died? How did I die?'

'You were shot by Miss Morley. She had a gun, a particle weapon, and she was trying to make me give her my alethiometer. You charged at her and she cut you to pieces with the gun. It was just the kind of stupid, brave thing you would have done. So how can you be here now, if you're dead? You're not a ghost, I can see that.'

'No, I'm not a ghost. But Lyra, you're not supposed to be alive either. You died five years ago, or – how long had I been in Jim and Carrie's house? – maybe it was more than that. I found you in here, sitting at your desk. They said it was something in your brain – a blood clot, I think it was.'

'I died?'

'Yes. You were buried in the Botanic Garden. That's why I was looking for a memorial plaque. Your memorial plaque.'

Lyra rested her chin in the palm of her hand. 'So – you think I died, and I think you died, but we're both alive…'

'More or less.'

'More or less. Peter, can you tell me what you've been doing for the past seven years?'

'Er, from the time we went to Will's world, or before then? All of it? Let me think… Do you remember going to Will's world? Where we met John, and Judy and Mary? Arthur went too. Do you remember that?'

Lyra had flinched when I mentioned Arthur Shire's name. Why? 'Yes, I remember that, and attacking the Boreal offices in Cropredy together with the gyptians. Now; do you recall what happened when you came here for your alethiometry lesson, the Saturday after we got back to Oxford? See what you can remember, Peter, and put all your thoughts in order just like I used to tell you. Oh, and I'll take this tray out and get us another cup of tea. Sit tight, I'll be back in a jiffy.'

The Professor was taking charge of her student.

When she returned, laden with tea, cups, plates, biscuits, orange cakes, hot water, milk and a saucer for my grey squirrel to drink from, I was ready. I'm not going to write down everything I told Lyra that evening. It would take far too long and would only repeat what I've already told you in my story. As I sat by the fireplace and related everything that had happened to me over the past seven years since the day that Lyra and I were ambushed by Miss Morley, the light through the window slowly faded and turned red as the sun disappeared behind the trees and buildings on the far side of the quad beyond. At some time, Lyra must have risen to her feet and lit the lamps in the room, but I can't say when. I was too involved in my task.

As I spoke, Lyra listened attentively, interrupting from time to time if I skipped an important event or person. We soon realised that the point at which our two stories diverged was the moment when I, fed up with being the object of Miss Morley's scorn, had charged at her. In my world, mysterious figures had come to my rescue, and reflected the beam from Miss Morley's gun back on herself, killing here. In Lyra's world – the world where I was living (if you could call it that) now – Miss Morley had killed me and there had been no rescue. Just to make it even more confusing, the Lyra whom I had seen when I came to after my rescue had had no recollection of any attack by Miss Morley. That Lyra believed, and it was true in that world, that Miss Morley had been killed a few days earlier, when the gyptians, led by my friend Arthur Shire, had laid siege to the Boreal Foundation offices in Cropredy.

'It's all hopelessly mixed up,' I said. 'I don't understand it.'

Lyra looked into the empty fireplace. 'Tell me again,' she said, 'about Elizabeth.'

'We think,' I said, 'that she was the one who sent the dreams.'

'The dreams?'

'Terrible nightmares. Every night – twice a night, sometimes. They were… indescribably horrible. They seemed to burrow into you, like a worm looking for your soul – looking to find it and eat it and spit it out. I felt… mangled, chewed up. I can't tell you…' _(See footnote 1 - CW)_

'Why do you think it was Elizabeth that sent them?

'It's what Arthur thought. He had them too, you know, those dreams. It was as if she had wanted to take revenge on everyone who had spoiled her plans. Arthur can see further than we can, can't he?'

'Yes, he can.' Again, that look of sorrow on Lyra's face.

'Anyway, he thought that it was the dreams that killed you.'

'I still can't imagine that.'

'You never had the dreams. They were unimaginable.'

Lyra put her chin in her hand again.

'Did I have a good funeral?'

I laughed. 'It was magnificent! You'd have been proud. The King was there…'

'Alfred? He turned up?'

'Oh, yes. Elizabeth tried to wreck everything by arriving late, but even she couldn't ruin it. I was there, with Jane…'

'Jane?'

'Jane Phipps. She was my girlfriend then. Not now, though.'

'Sorry. Go on.'

'Jane, and Arthur and Harry Owen. Oh, and Adèle Starminster as well.'

'Adèle Starminster? Do I know her?'

'She knows you. She was a journalist on the _Chronicle_, in my world. She first met you when you were only eleven or twelve, back in London. She nearly went to Bolvangar.'

'Oh, _Adèle! _Arthur's friend!'

'That's her. Anyway, she was the one who found Elizabeth's things on the shore, when she drowned herself.'

'Elizabeth drowned herself?' Lyra's mouth was a wide O of astonishment.

'Yes, in Eire, two or three months after you died. Arthur knows a lot more than he's saying about that, I'm sure.' _(See footnote 2 - CW)_

'Yes… Yes, I'm sure he does.' Lyra looked down and stroked Pantalaimon.

'Please, Lyra; I don't understand.'

'What don't you understand?'

'What's wrong with Arthur? Why do you look that way whenever I mention his name?'

Lyra sighed. 'You'll have to know sooner or later. Peter, Arthur's dead. Dead in this world, at least.'

'Dead?'

'I'm afraid so.'

'He can't be! He had a special arrangement with Death. He wasn't ready for it and it wasn't ready for him. That's how you were able to bring him back, after we saved Davey.'

'The boy who was Severed?'

'Yes, in the gyptian refuge. The cottage.'

'So Arthur's still alive, where you were living?'

'Yes. I never dreamed he'd not be alive here. Oh…' I groaned.

'Peter?' Lyra leaned forward. 'What is it?'

'I was just thinking. If Arthur had been alive here he'd have been able to restore V… Viola and me, like he did for Davey and Miranda. I hadn't thought of that until just now, and now,' I choked, 'now it can't happen. Oh Lyra! Arthur's dead, and all I can think of is how it affects _me_! It's true, what I said – I'm inhuman!' I stood up and walked over to the window. I wanted to open it wide; wide open and throw myself out, only the curtains were drawn and the casements were bolted and so I didn't.

Lyra rose from her chair and came and stood next to me. She put an arm on my shoulder, and oh, the scent of her hair! It brought back to me, as nothing else could have done, the longings I had had, in the old days in the old world when I was just a boy. It overwhelmed me for a moment. I looked out of the window, hoping that my expression had not betrayed me.

'You're hurt, Peter. Very badly hurt. I know how it is to be hurt.'

'Not like this!'

'Yes, Peter. Like this. Pan and I were separated once, in the World of the Dead. It was awful. It hurt us a very great deal. But look!' Lyra smiled lopsidedly and took both my hands in hers. 'We're both still here. Even without Arthur's help, we'll still find a way to bring you and Viola back together.'

I smiled in response – a feeble, pale smile it was – and we returned to the chairs by the fireplace. I took a sip of cold tea.

'How did Arthur die?'

'It was just after Miss Morley had killed you. Arthur had followed you to Jordan, but he'd been held up on the way. I expect he was keeping a look-out for Boreal agents. He came into this room just after Miss Morley shot you. I think that, if he'd been forewarned, he could have disabled Miss Morley, taken her gun and disabled her. As it was, she shot him too. Not through the heart, like you but across the abdomen.

'Peter, don't make me talk about it. Arthur took ages to die. Three weeks of constant pain in the Infirmary, growing weaker and weaker every day. They couldn't stop the infection getting into his blood, they said.'

'So he died of blood poisoning, too. Just like his Maggie.' _(See footnote 3 - CW)_

'Yes, I suppose so.'

Lyra went on to tell me how, with both Arthur and me dead, the victory of Elizabeth Boreal had been, in this world, complete. The Boreal Foundation had gone from strength to strength, gaining power and influence throughout Brytain, from the westernmost extent of the Nation of Kernow to the Cape of Wrath in the far north of Caledonia. This explained so much of what I had seen in my brief tour of Oxford that afternoon. The autobusses – run by the Boreal Foundation, and painted in the Boreal colours of blue and gold. James and James – bought out by the Boreals. It seemed that Master James had lost heart in the business when I, his heir and successor, was taken from him. The Botanic Garden – privatised and handed over to the Boreal Foundation to operate as a profit centre, making money. And so on, and so on. Jordan College was not immune to this money-canker either. It was expected to operate on a commercial basis now. For example, Lyra's services as an alethiometrist were available, on a consultancy basis at so many hundred pounds per hour, to anyone who wished to hire them.

'That's what Elizabeth was after! The alethiometer!'

'That's what she got, Peter. We are living in hard times, here.'

'Is she here now? Miss Morley, I mean.'

'No. She returned to her world. As far as I know she stayed there, running the Boreal's business interests under the Latrom Holdings name.'

'So she went back. I bet she didn't want to risk getting stuck here and dying of it.'

'I bet she didn't.'

We talked all evening, saying much more than I've got room to put down here, as I mentioned already. Over and over, sharing the old days; when we were younger, and the world less fallen into decay. At last, with the mantel clock having chimed the three-quarters and the hands showed thirteen minutes to ten, Lyra said, 'Peter, I'm going to have to throw you out. The bars, you see.'

'The bars?' I remembered what the security guard – a Boreal employee, as I now knew – had said when we entered Jordan.

'Yes, Peter. No overnight visitors allowed in College. It's immoral.' Lyra grinned. 'Not that some don't try it! But we're all supposed to be celibate here.'

__

Oh yes. 'I'm sorry, Lyra. Of course I'll go. I'll find a room in an hotel.'

'I suppose that's what you'd better do,' Lyra said.

I stood up. 'I've got no luggage. Will any respectable place take me in?'

'The Feathers Hotel is all right. They're reasonably discreet, so long as you pay up promptly.' Lyra frowned. 'Have you got enough money, Peter?'

I emptied out my pockets. Thirteen shillings and elevenpence-halfpenny. 'No, I don't think so!'

Lyra fetched her purse and gave me five sovereigns. My embarrassment must have showed on my face, for she said, 'Don't worry! Pay me back when you can!'

'Shall I see you tomorrow morning?'

'Yes, that would be best. Where?'

I thought. 'The Rose Tea Shop, on the High Street. Ten o'clock?' Perhaps Carrie would be there.

'That'll do nicely,' Lyra said. 'I'll see you there.'

I was standing by the door, at the top of the Stair. 'Goodnight, Lyra.'

'Goodnight, Peter.' She handed something to me. 'Look, you nearly forgot her!' It was the grey squirrel, who had once been my daemon.

'Thank you.' I put the creature in my jacket pocket.

I had been about to ask Lyra if she would come to the Feathers Hotel and stay the night with me, so I could hold her next to me and bury my face in her hair. My heart was thumping in my chest with nervous anticipation. Maybe she would say yes. Perhaps we would be able to comfort one another. But, no. Not with Viola as she was. Lyra must have read my mind, for she smiled ruefully.

'Oh, Peter. Oh, if only…'

'If only,' I said, the words bitter gall in my mouth.

Lyra reached up to me, and I put my arms around her waist, and we stood in the doorway and kissed briefly. Then we parted, and she went back into her room and closed the door, and I descended the Stair and left the grounds of Jordan College – being careful to sign out at the Porter's Lodge – and found the Feathers Hotel, near the Parks. As Lyra had said, they were glad to give me a place, so long as I paid my two guineas in advance. I climbed the stairs to my hired room, where I lay in a hired bed, and failed to sleep, until the rising sun knocked on the window-pane and told me that it was time to get up and start another half-human day.

**__**

Footnote 1 – You can read about the dreams which the vengeful Elizabeth Boreal visited on Lyra, Peter, Will and Arthur in the story _The Queen of the Night_, available only on my website www.cereswunderkind.net. WARNING! This story is rated NC-17 (UK 18) for extreme unpleasantness.

**__**

Footnote 2 – Indeed he does. Read _A Gift of Love_ (here on FF.NET and also at www.cereswunderkind.net) for more about the deaths of Lyra Belacqua and Elizabeth Boreal.

**__**

Footnote 3 – There's so much history behind this chapter! The story of how Arthur Shire and Maggie Doyle travelled to Bolvangar and tackled Mrs Coulter on her own ground is told in Jopari's _Arthur and Maggie_, also at www.cereswunderkind.net.


	18. I Meet my Death

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I Meet my Death 

I had already settled my bill so, once I had eaten my breakfast of lamb cutlets and mushrooms, accompanied with buttered toast and washed down by hot, sweet tea, I was free to leave the Feathers Hotel. The weather was sunny, but cloudy too with the promise of a shower later – in other words, a typical Oxford day – and the air was warm so, with the James and James clock in the hallway standing at half-past eight I made ready to depart. I wanted to get outside.

'Goodbye, sir,' said the young woman on the front desk, taking a furtive look at the grey squirrel in my jacket pocket. 'Can she see all right, stuck in there?' she asked. Her own mouse-daemon was crouching beside her on the top of the desk, looking anxious and tense with his whiskers vibrating and his eyes flicking rapidly from side to side.

'She likes it,' I replied, ignoring the girl's insolence in presuming to comment on the welfare of my daemon. 'Her eyes, you know. It's very bright outside.' 

'Oh well, if that's what she wants. Good day to you.'

'Good day,' I said and walked out onto the street, letting the brown-painted front door of the hotel swing to behind me. The Parks were nearby and so, with an hour and a half to kill before I was due to meet Lyra, I found myself a quiet corner and sat down on the grass by the trunk of an oak tree.

It was plain to me now that, just as Miss Morley's false cat-daemon had made me feel sick and upset all those years ago in Cropredy, there were people in this unfamiliar Oxford who were able to tell that there was something wrong with me. How could I possibly continue to live in this way? I would never know when an especially sensitive person might spot me and then; who knew what would happen? The Church might become involved, or the courts. For all I knew, this world had a Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Daemons to whom I might be denounced and taken away to be punished for bullying Viola to the extent that she had become catatonic. There had been rumours going the rounds when I was growing up that there were places – asylums – where people and daemons who had in some way grown apart or become no longer known to one another were kept, out of the sight of decent, ordinary folk. Would I end up in one of those establishments, confined to a cell, examined by doctors and put through a futile course of treatment designed to bring Viola and me back together? I knew only one way of achieving our reunion, and that was by the gathering and sharing of Dust, guided by an oracle such as Arthur Shire. That was the way that we had restored Davey and Miranda to one another. But Arthur was dead; and who could take his place?

I took the squirrel out of my pocket and ran my hand down her warm, furry back. Even though she was no longer my beloved Viola, she was still a living creature in my care and I could not bring myself to do her any harm. She sat in the palm of my hand and looked into my face, and I looked down at hers. From a distance we looked like any other normal human-daemon pair and so, I thought, we would be safe for a while. I leaned back against the tree and, tired out, fell asleep at last.

'All right for some!' said the park-keeper, waking me with a jolt.

'Er, sorry, what?' I said, confused and blinking in the daylight.

'Haven't you got a job to go to?'

'No, no, not today. I'm on holiday.'

'On holiday, eh, and letting the day go to waste!'

Oh heck! How long had I been asleep? The shadows of the trees had shortened considerably.

'What time is it?' I asked.

'I didn't think time mattered on holiday!' The park-keeper set down his wheelbarrow and rake and consulted his watch. 'Ten past ten, young man.'

'Thank you, Goodsir,' I said and, jumping to my feet and pocketing the squirrel, I dashed off in the direction of the High Street.

'Some holiday!' came floating over the air behind me.

It was ten-fifteen when I crashed, hot and sweaty, through the street door of The Rose Tea Shop. There was Lyra, sitting at a table by the wall, nursing a cup of kaffee. Another cup stood opposite hers, with a saucer placed on top of it to keep it warm.

'I'm sorry I'm late,' I said, taking the seat opposite her.

'I should hope so! I was just starting to get worried. Did you get into the hotel all right last night?'

'Yes. It was,' I remembered an expression John Parry had used, 'OK.' The Lyra I had known before had liked it.

'OK?'

'Means "All Right".'

'Hmmm. Drink your kaffee, Peter.'

I took a sip. It was luke-warm, which served me right for being late. When I had drunk half the cup and recovered my breath, I looked around the tea shop. It was all very much as it had been in my world – spindly chairs and tables, chromium-plated fittings, green-painted walls – except that Carrie Mason wasn't working there, as I had hoped she might be. I said as much to Lyra.

'A good thing too,' she replied. 'We don't want anybody else recognising you. It could cause difficulties.'

I was beginning to notice more and more the differences between this Lyra and the old Lyra – the one who had died – which was odd when you come to think about it, as this Lyra must have been the one I had met first. I know that's confusing, but take a moment's thought and you'll see what I mean. This Lyra had seen me shot by Miss Morley; the Lyra who lay buried in the Botanic Garden had not. This Lyra was tougher and more down-to-earth than the Lyra I had known. 'Hard times,' she had said the night before, and I could see that she had become a little harder herself, to match them. My Lyra, if I can call her that, had been worn down by bad dreams – as we both had – and had become more spiritual and thoughtful as a result. More tired, too.

Certainly this was the Lyra I needed now; practical and resourceful, used to dealing with difficult questions. I had a difficult question for her now:

'Lyra,' I said, 'what happened to the Severed adults of Bolvangar?'

'Hush! Not so loud!' She looked around. Then in a lowered voice, 'I only know at second hand. The gyptians rescued some of them, along with the children. I believe they were kept in another part of the ship, away from everyone else. Arthur said something about it. He was on the ship too, of course.'

'And after they got back to Brytain?'

'Nobody knows. Peter…'

'Yes?'

'I was thinking; last night after you left. You're different from them.'

'Different? How?'

'They were… resigned to their condition. They didn't seem to care that they had been Severed. Not in the way you care.'

'Perhaps they had got used to it.'

'I don't see how you could get used to something like that.' Lyra's hand unconsciously stroked Pantalaimon's ears.

Neither did I. And yet… you can get used to anything in time. It was certainly true that, now the initial shock of my separation from Viola had receded a little, the strangeness and pain had become a little less as well. Or, to look at it another way, I had not slept last night, but maybe I would be able to sleep tonight, as my body and spirit adapted to my new situation. I told Lyra as much.

'I see,' she said. 'Then we'd better see what we can do to stop you from becoming like they were. Have you finished?'

I drained my cup. 'Yes, I have now.'

'Then be a gentleman and carry that bag for me, would you?' I noticed it for the first time – a brown canvas portmanteau lying on the floor between Lyra's chair and the wall. Lyra stood up and the waitress hurried over with the bill. I paid it, and followed Lyra out of the tea shop and into the High Street, carrying the bag and trying not to let it bang against the door or bump into any of the customers.

'What's in here?' I asked as we strode briskly up the High towards Cornmarket Street.

'The bag? Oh, this and that. A few clothes and things. I was up before you, don't you know, and I didn't spend all morning snoozing in the Parks like you did!'

Lyra laughed, and I laughed with her. This was the Lyra I remembered, all right. This was the Lyra who had kept us going when Davey was intercised and when we thought that Arthur had died. This was the Lyra who never gave up.

'That's more like it,' she said.

Lyra clearly had a plan. I could have asked her what it was, I suppose, but it seemed presumptuous of me, a half-human, to ask a full Professor of Jordan College to explain herself, so I didn't. Instead I walked beside her, carrying her luggage like a porter, and waiting to see what she would do. What she did was to lead us to the autobus station and buy two return tickets to Warwick. She must have looked up the timetable in advance, because there was a 'bus standing waiting for us at one of the stops. We showed our tickets to the driver and took a pair of seats at the back. The 'bus pulled away in a cloud of oily smoke only two minutes after we had boarded it.

'Lyra,' I said, as we rumbled up St Giles, 'why are we taking the 'bus to Warwick? The train's a lot quicker, and I don't think it costs any more.'

'Because we're not going to Warwick,' she replied.

'Oh yes! That makes sense.'

'Don't be cheeky! Look,' and Lyra leaned over to me and spoke quietly, even though there were three rows of empty seats between us and the next passenger and the engine was making a considerable racket, 'Don't you think my sister doesn't keep a close eye on my movements? I'm one of her prime business assets. It'll have been reported to her that I took an autobus to Warwick, accompanied by a strange young man. There will be employees of the Boreal Foundation waiting for us by the gates of the castle, ready to inform Elizabeth by telephone when we get there. If I hadn't timed it right we'd have been followed onto the 'bus. As it is, we've caught her on the hop.'

'You've done this before, haven't you?'

'When I've had to, yes. When I've needed some privacy.'

I looked out of the window. We were travelling along the Banbury Road now, and University Colleges, pubs and shops, houses and gardens were giving way to the fields and trees of the open countryside. Suddenly I realised what Lyra's intentions were. Yes, of course…

'Wait a minute! I know where we're going…'

'Do you? Then keep it to yourself until we get there!'

Lyra had thought of everything, it seemed, including the needs of the animal which nestled in my jacket pocket. She handed me a small packet of cashews and I fed them to the creature as we rode along. She was a pretty thing, I had to admit, and her devotion to me, although a mockery of our previous intimacy, was touching in its own way. When I had been in John Parry's world, he had told me that people there kept animals, not just to work for them, as horses and dogs do in our world, or to kill and eat, like sheep, but also as companions. _Pets_ – that was the word he used.

'It's as if,' he had said, 'the men and women in my world wished they had daemons too. They don't know it consciously, but inside themselves they do, so they adopt animals instead and take them home to live with them.'

'That must be very strange,' I had said. 'To have a daemon that isn't a daemon,' for I understood by then that the people of John's world carried their daemons within themselves.

'The people and the animals sometimes grow very close to each other,' John had said. 'It's not the same thing as having a proper daemon,' and he stroked his Rosalind, 'but it is a little bit like it. There's real love there, they say.'

__

Real love. The words sounded meaningless to me now. I could not feel real love for this squirrel, knowing how it had been between us before we were Severed. But I held her in my hand, and fed her cashew nuts, and ran my hand down her back as the 'bus bounced and rolled along the narrow country roads to the north of Oxford.

Lyra turned the key in the lock, and stood back from the front door. 'Go on, Peter,' she said. 'Give it a shove!' I dropped the portmanteau to the ground, put my shoulder against the door and pushed hard. It stuck for a few seconds then, with a horrible grating sound it yielded a few inches. I took a step forward and pushed again. The door opened wide enough this time to let Lyra and me pass through and into the hall of the gyptian cottage. A clock stood next to the far wall. It had stopped at ten minutes to two. Lyra took a deep breath.

'Phew! This place could do with a good airing!' She was right. The atmosphere was distinctly musty, as if nobody had opened a window for several weeks. 'We'd better not, though,' she added. 'We might be seen. We'll have to be careful with the fire, too. The smoke from the chimney…'

I understood. We did not want to advertise our presence. As I remembered, this cottage, maintained by the gyptians as a refuge in times of trouble or persecution, was a well-kept secret. It had been a tremendous gesture of trust for Arthur Shire and Harry Owen to let us stay there after we had returned from John Parry's world, all those years ago. I guessed that life had not become any easier for the gyptians since those days.

'I suppose Harry's working for the Boreals now,' I said.

'No! He'd never do that! But he had to sell the boats and join a carrier's firm. He's with Fowler's these days.'

'Do you see him much?'

'No, not much. Now then,' dismissing the subject, 'let's get you and Viola moved in.'

'I'm going to live here?'

'Yes, until we decide what to do with you. You're not safe in Oxford; you know that.'

'No, you're right,'

'So you can stay here for now. Take Davey's old room. I've put some things in the bag, so take it up with you.'

As I walked up the narrow, wood-panelled stairs to the first floor, I was possessed by the sensation that I was stepping into the past. It returned to me as vividly as if I were once more fifteen years old, and seeing Arthur lying dead on the floor by Davey's bed for the very first time. This feeling stayed with me when I entered the room. I put Lyra's bag on the bed and stood to one side of the window and looked out over the garden which was evidently being cared for, as the grass had been mown some time in the last week or two and the flower-beds were well-stocked and free from weeds. I looked down, and remembered how I had crouched by the cottage wall the morning after Arthur's death and seen two aethereal figures float across the lawn, clad in gauzy, flowing garments and fabulously, transparently illuminated by the rising sun.

Who had they been? Why had they been there? And what connection had they had with Arthur's resurrection? No one had ever answered those questions.

The bag contained a pair of pyjamas, some washing things and a spare shirt and pair of trews. I wondered where Lyra had found them. When I returned to the ground floor, I found her in the kitchen, boiling a kettle on a little camping stove.

'Right!' she said. 'Now we can talk some more.'

'Yes. But first – are you sure we weren't seen coming here?'

'No, I can't be sure. The alarm will have been raised in Warwick by now. They won't have thought to check the other 'buses yet. Instead they'll be looking around Warwick or Coventry. If we're lucky, nobody saw us get off in Banbury; or get on the other 'bus – the one that brought us here.'

'So we'll be safe for a few days.'

'You will be. There's plenty of tinned food in the cupboards and the well is just outside the back door, over there. I've got to get back to Oxford soon, maybe tonight. Tomorrow night, at the latest.'

'What'll you say, if they ask you?' 

'Oh, that I changed my mind and carried on to Brummagem. I've a friend there who'll cover for me. Don't worry about me, Peter. Let's worry about you.' Pantalaimon winked at me.

We sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table, mugs in front of us. 'Now then,' Lyra said, and she took a small velvet bag from her pocket and placed it between us. 'You told me last night that you'd had to pawn the alethiometer in order to save James and James from being repossessed by the Middlewich Bank.'

I had not enjoyed telling Lyra about that. 'Yes. I'm sorry.'

'Don't be. I'll tell you why. Do you remember what happened, when you asked the alethiometer what you should do about the shop?'

'Yes – I asked the question, the needle spun, but I didn't follow it properly. I wasn't expecting to get anything out of it, and I didn't.'

'But you saw all its movements, until it stopped?'

'Yes. I just didn't register them in my mind.'

'Oh…OK. Then you went to Mister Hurst's pawnshop and he asked you how his sight might be restored. He was blind, wasn't he?'

'Yes, but his daemon could see. She was his eyes.'

'So you put the question to the alethiometer, and the needle moved. Did you note where it stopped?'

'Yes, I did, very carefully. I didn't want him to think I was a fraud. But I couldn't work out what it was trying to tell me.'

'Right. Peter, do you see what that meant?'

'No. Apart from the fact that I was useless at reading the alethiometer, no.'

Lyra smiled – the broadest, most beautiful smile you ever saw – and her eyes sparkled with mischievous glee. 'Oh, Peter! You silly boy! Isn't it obvious? You asked the alethiometer how to save the shop, and it gave you the best answer it could – _pawn me_.'

'No, it didn't!'

'Yes, it did. You just didn't realise it consciously. Don't you see? You were reading the alethiometer _instinctively_, by Grace, just as I did when it first came to me. When you tried to interpret it the hard way, by studying the needle's movements and trying to remember the meanings in the books, you failed; like you did at Mister Hurst's. When you allowed the instrument to speak directly to you, as you did in the Garden, the correct answer came to you straight away, although you didn't realise it. You decided to pawn the alethiometer because, deep inside your mind, you had already understood the truth of what it had told you.

'Peter – you achieved, with an adult, settled daemon, what I could only do before Pan took his grown-up form. You have a great gift – as I suspected all along. You can read the alethiometer by Grace. When you get home–'

__

When! 

'You must do your best to redeem the pledge at Hurst's. You could be the greatest alethiometrist of all some day.'

I pointed to the velvet bag. 'It's in there, isn't it?'

'Yes.'

'I don't think I could read it now. Not with Viola the way she is.'

'No, I think you're right. So I'm going to read it for you.' Lyra opened the bag and took the alethiometer out of it.

'Peter, I think you have two problems that we have to solve. The first one is obvious.' I looked at Viola, who was lying on the table, Pantalaimon next to her. 'We have to reunite you and Viola, and we have to do it without Arthur's help.

'The second problem concerns your life in the other world, before you came here. I don't think that having Viola separated from you, however brutally, would have resulting in your appearing in this world if you had been a proper, native inhabitant of the other one. What you told me about your feelings of disconnection and the appearance of the time-ghosts makes that pretty clear.'

'Yes. It was getting worse all the time. I didn't feel as if I belonged there at all.'

'I agree. You told me that you were worried after you were rescued from Miss Morley's attack on you that there had been a mistake of some kind; that you ought to have been killed, or you should come back to life in a different world of Time from the one you actually did wake up in.'

'That's it. I couldn't understand it when the Lyra I knew said that she believed that Miss Morley had been killed the Sunday before, in Cropredy.'

Lyra laughed. 'Mary Malone would have known how to untangle this mess!'

'We talked about Time and event forks on the Bristol Downs, Mary, John and me, while you were with Will…' My voice tailed off.

'Yes. Yes, I'm sure you did.' A pause.

'Right! OK!' Lyra said brightly. 'I think your two problems boil down to just one. We must ask how you and Viola can be joined together again. It may be that you cannot live in the world you came from and must stay here. Or it may be that somehow you will have to return to the Oxford you know, and face Martin James and Elias Cholmondley; or there may be other possibilities that I haven't thought of. I cannot tell – but I must ask you this. Will you abide by whatever truth the oracle comes up with? It may be hard. There may be no answer, or the answer may be one that is impossible to fulfil.'

I did not hesitate. Hesitation would have been fatal. 'Yes, Lyra,' I said. 'I will abide by the alethiometer's decision.'

I was familiar with the use of the oracle. Although Lyra did not read it as she had in her childhood, by instinct, she was so well practised in its mystery that she no longer required the Books in order to interpret its movements. She quickly set the three pointers; to the Bird, for Viola, the Cauldron, for myself considered as a craftsman, and the Sword, for Justice, that we might be brought together again and the balance of the Universe restored. Lyra concentrated on the instrument's dial and the needle sprang to life.

It was not to be expected that I, a man without a daemon, would be able to divine the oracle, and so I did not attempt to do so, merely observing as the needle swung to and fro, to and fro. Even so, it must have been true, what Lyra said about my innate ability to read the alethiometer, for when it finally came to rest I was filled with a great fear, a dreadful foreboding. Lyra's face grew very pale and she covered the instrument's bezel with her right hand. She said nothing.

'Lyra… it's bad news, isn't it? There's no answer, right? I've got to stay here until they find me, and put me away or whatever they do to abominations like me. They'll send me to gaol? Yes? Lyra, please say something!'

For the first time since I had found her in this world of Time, Lyra sounded tired and afraid.

'No, Peter. That is not it at all. There is an answer. The needle stopped on the Sun, the Hourglass and the Candle. In order for you to be reunited with Viola, you must die – die by fire. The presence of the Sun confirms the truth of this divination. There can be no doubt about it. None in the slightest. Oh, Peter! I'm so sorry...' She let her face fall into her hands and wept.

I stood up and crossed the kitchen floor until I was standing by the window. Like the bedroom window upstairs it looked out over a bed of herbs to the lawn beyond. And at last I understood who, or what, the figures were that I had seen walking in the garden that morning seven years ago; for another figure, wearing a hooded cloak of the finest watered indigo silk, stood there now in the full light of the afternoon sun, looking in on me as I was looking out at him. I knew then that the alethiometer had told the truth, nor was Lyra mistaken in her reading of it. I was to die, for there was my Death waiting quietly for me as Lyra's and Arthur's Deaths had once waited for them, as I sat and watched and held a wild magpie in my hand.


	19. I Perform a Daring Rescue

__

I Perform a Daring Rescue

When lovely woman stoops to folly

Thomas Stearns Eliot –_ The Waste Land_

'Peter,' Lyra said, joining me by the kitchen window. 'I brought you this. I was going to leave it with you when I went.'

'Went?'

'Went back to Oxford.' She handed me a small book, bound in brown cloth. 'It's all I had left of you after you died. I've been keeping it safe.'

I knew straight away which book it was. 'My book of stories! The one John gave me!'

'_The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky_. I was reading it when you turned up in the Garden yesterday.'

'So you were. Lyra…'

'Yes?'

'You won't leave me now, will you?'

'No, Peter.' She gave my hand a squeeze. 'I won't leave you now.' The presence outside regarded us through the window with a steady gaze. It did not move.

* * * *

'It didn't really mean that, did it?' I asked Lyra. 'It didn't really mean I had to be burned to death?'

'You had much rather it didn't, wouldn't you? Not literally burned with fire. So would I, Peter. So would I. But you know,' Lyra sighed, 'that the truth the alethiometer speaks is always absolute. Our interpretations of it may vary, but the alethiometer does not. It is unchanging.

'The symbols it chose – they were primary ones. You know that primary associations are the strongest. Readings become harder and harder to interpret as the meanings slip further away from their first associations into secondary, tertiary and quaternary.'

'Yes, I know. You taught me that.'

'I forgot. You had two more years of study with the other me in the other Oxford. You probably know far more about the alethiometer than I'm giving you credit for. It's hard to keep up sometimes.'

'Yes. But what you're saying is that the alethiometer, and your reading of it, can't possibly be wrong.'

'No, I'm sorry. It can't.'

I had known that all along, of course.

* * * *

I was sitting in my room, reading _The Book of the Wonders of Urth and Sky_. It was funny, odd. It didn't feel quite right. Different hands – Lyra's hands – had been handling it for the past seven years. The cover had worn in a different way, a page that I had accidentally torn in my world was intact in this copy, and all the pictures were still covered by their protective rice paper. Lyra had looked after it much better than I had.

All my favourites were there – it was the same book, after all, even if it now existed in a different world. _The Ballad of Ruth, Odysseus and the Argive Helen, All the Ways of the Heart, Judas and the Centipede, The God and His Men_; I loved them all. I hoped that I would be able to find comfort in its pages, among the people who lived there, even though I was no longer a person myself. 'Oh, Viola,' I said to the squirrel who lay next to me on the bed, 'don't you remember? Don't you?' But she said nothing.

* * * *

I sat at the kitchen table and waited while Lyra stirred a saucepan of tinned soup on the stove. That, and some dry biscuits from a foil-lined barrel, were to be all our supper that night.

'Do you think he wants some?' I said. My Death was invisible now. We had drawn the curtains and closed the shutters so that no light from the hissing spirit lamp should show outside and give away our presence in the cottage. He stood alone in the garden, my nemesis, and bided his time.

'I shouldn't have thought so!' Lyra chuckled. She poured the soup into two mugs and handed one of them over to me. It was thick and steaming, and I was hungry.

'I never could cook,' Lyra said. 'Boil an egg, make some toast, fry some bacon. Make an omelette. That's about it in the culinary department.'

'Neither can I. I can make a sort of stew, I suppose, but it comes out all wrong. The vegetables go all mushy and the meat's grey and tough and it tastes like caoutchuc.'

'Do you brown it first, with onions?'

'What do you mean, brown it?'

'Fry it until it goes brown.'

'No, I don't.'

'You should. Ma Costa always said you should. She said it seals in the juices and the flavour.'

'Oh. I didn't know that.'

* * * *

I lay in bed, unsleeping, in Davey's room. Davey; who had been saved from Severance as I could not be. Davey, who had talked and chattered and asked endless questions until he drove us mad. Davey, who had gone back home to his brothers and sisters in Norwich almost untouched by his experiences. I envied him. I almost hated him.

Wherever Davey was, he was safe. I was safe too, in a way. Safe from doubt. If there had been any uncertainty about what was going to happen to me, I don't suppose that my Death would have been waiting for me nearby. I wondered – suppose I made a definite decision not to seek reunion with Viola. What would happen? Would my Death depart from me? How could I prove that I meant it? Stand up in the Oratory and announce it in front of the congregation? 'I, Peter Joyce, will not kill myself, nor seek my death, so help me God?' And suppose I did that, and then I turned around to find him still there; still standing silently next to me (for I guessed that he would follow me if I tried to escape from the neighbourhood of the cottage), what would I do then?

Why did he not speak to me? _Because you haven't spoken to him_, came the answer. There was only one way to find out what would happen if I tried to converse with my Death. I gathered up the squirrel, slipped her into my pocket and crept down the stairs to the kitchen. The outside door was locked, but I pulled back the bolts as quietly as I could and opened it. Yes, he was still there; still standing motionless in the middle of the lawn, still facing the house. I walked up to him and, resisting the temptation to pull the hood back over his head so I could look into his eyes, I said, 'Are you my Death, as I believe you to be?'

There was no reply. 'Talk to me!' I said. 'I'm Peter. Peter Joyce. There, now you know who I am. Who are you? You're my Death, aren't you? Am I going to die?'

Nothing. No movement or sound. The air had been quiet up to that point, but as I stepped back, uncertain of what to do or say next, a gentle night-breeze stirred the branches of the trees. I felt it ruffle my hair a little, but the silken gown my Death wore did not move in the slightest. 'Please,' I said. 'Please, say something.'

If he had shaken his head, or shown any sign that he had heard me, or just acknowledged that I existed, I would have kept my temper. As it was, I was tired and anxious and full of fear so I lashed out at him. 'Talk to me, you bastard! Say something! Are you effing deaf or what?'

I seized his left shoulder and tried to shake him into action. I might as well have tried to anbarise a marble statue. The figure was not merely unmoving; it was _immovable_, solid, rigid, dense and infinitely heavy.

'Bastard, bastard, bastard!' I thumped my Death's shoulder again and again and again, but I only succeeded in bruising my hand.

'Peter!' It was Lyra, dressed in the pyjamas she had brought for me to wear and carrying a lit candle. It illuminated her face with an orange glow, making her appear much younger. She looked like a little girl wearing her older brother's clothes. 'Peter, stop it!' 

'He won't say or do anything!' My eyes were wet. 'You try!'

'No, Peter. Leave him alone. Come over here.' Lyra took my hand and led me to the side of the house. She sat down on a makeshift bench – two stacks of bricks and an oak plank – and I sat next to her. 'Look, Peter. Look up.' Lyra blew out the candle and pointed to a patch of open sky, visible between the branches of the trees. I blinked and followed her pointing finger.

__

The stars. It was a cloudless night and the moon had not yet risen. We were miles from the nearest town or village and there was no artificial light to be seen anywhere. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness. The stars were sharp pinpoints of light, intensely bright against an ebony background. As I looked, they seemed to grow and multiply, until the whole of the sky was filled with stars, silently scattering their seed across the length and breadth of the Universe.

'If you had the right kind of resin,' Lyra said in a dreamy, distant, hushed voice, 'you could make a lens…'

'What kind of resin?'

'It comes from the trees of a certain world. If you had some of that resin, and you moulded it, and polished it, and made a lens out of it, you could use it to make a kind of telescope to watch the heavens.'

'We make them out of brass and crystal. We used to sell them in the shop.'

'Ah, yes,' and Lyra's voice came from a very long way away now, 'but this lens can only be made in a very _special_ place. Peter; if you made such a telescope and looked at the sky through it, do you know what you would see?'

'Stars? Planets? Worlds?'

'Life! Peter, you'd see Life! Angels and golden Dust dwelling in Deep Heaven, sailing between the stars, up there in the spaces between the worlds; joining them, linking them in an eternal communion.'

'The stars talk to each other?'

'They dance! And while they dance, they murmur to one another of their great Purpose; and the air they breathe and the words that are carried on it are made of Dust, Life, Joy and Love.

'Love, Peter! Endless, boundless love. We only have to reach out for it and it can be ours. It is only waiting for us to build our Republic of Heaven and it will join us here on Earth.

'The Republic of Heaven…'

* * * *

Lyra must have brought us an eiderdown from the cottage at some time during the night; for the sun rose on us both the following morning, still sitting on the bench, wrapped in feathered warmth, arms around each other and hands interlinked, breathing softly. Pantalaimon lay next to Viola, and was not ashamed.

* * * *

'Coo-eee! Anybody home?' A hand knocked on the kitchen door. Lyra and I were sitting at the table, eating biscuits and honey. 'Hello!'

Lyra's face fell. 'Oh, damn! Not already! Not so soon!'

The door opened and a woman walked in. I could not see her face and I did not at first recognise her.

'Sorry! Did I disturb you! I say, could you spare me a cup of sugar? I've run a little short.'

I remembered my manners and stood up.

'What a polite young man! Lyra, do introduce me to your friend. I'm longing to meet him.'

Lyra stood up also. 'Elizabeth, this is Peter Joyce. Peter, meet my sister Lady Elizabeth Boreal.'

I was momentarily nonplussed. 'Elizabeth? Here? But… you're dead! Drowned…'

'I'm very much alive, it seems,' the woman drawled. She held out her hand. 'Pleased to meet you, Peter Joyce.'

'My Lady.' I shook her hand and ducked my head a little. Lady Boreal sat down at the table. Now that I could see her face I recognised her. I had seen her once before, at Lyra's funeral; now I saw her close up. She was a few years older than Lyra, wearing clothes that I could tell were very expensive and probably hand-made. An exotic scent hung about her, her hair was immaculately arranged, and her skin, despite her age, seemed to glow from within. My mother would have called her "showy".

'Get us a cup of tea would you, Peter? I'm parched.' Lyra nodded, so I went over to the stove, refilled the kettle and put it on to boil.

'I must say I'm surprised at you, Lyra. It's quite a pleasant surprise, in a way. It makes you look a little more human, dear sister, and not the selfish little prig I thought you'd turned into. Still, who'd have imagined it!'

'Imagined what?'

'That our oh-so-proper Madam Professor Belacqua would have been keeping such a sweet little love-nest out here in the sticks! It's a smashing place, isn't it? Beautiful countryside – I'm quite jealous. Frightfully primitive and rather plain of course but, there again, that suits you, doesn't it?'

'Just as you like, Elizabeth.' Lyra's lips were pressed close together.

Lady Boreal turned in her chair. Her serpent-daemon slithered down her arm and looped himself about her wrist. 'Peter! Let's take a look at you.' I faced her.

'Oh yes. He's a nice boy, isn't he? Gorgeous hair. Look at those arms! Is he very strong, Lyra? Does he rouse you, darling? Does he make you scream, just a little? Oooh – I could fancy a tumble with him myself. Would you mind?'

'Don't be ridiculous.'

'Don't be ridiculous? My sweet-hearted Lyra, who is being ridiculous? Me, popping in to visit my sister for a nice cup of tea, or a dried-up, middle-aged professor hiding out in a rural slum with a silly little boy whose only virtues seem to be a certain naïve charm, a smattering of manners and the ability to use a camping stove. Is that tea ready yet, Peter?'

'Nearly, Lady Boreal.' I was determined to keep my temper with her. I remembered the encounter Lyra and I had had with Miss Morley and how an impetuous action on my part had led to death for Arthur Shire and me.

Elizabeth turned back to Lyra. 'Tut-tut, Lyra. What would our mutual friend Will Parry say if he knew what you were getting up to behind his back? Where is your great world-saving love now?'

'It is as strong as ever. You know that, Elizabeth.'

'What a lying bitch it is. Lyra-liar. You don't change, do you?'

'I have never lied to you.' Lyra's face was carved from stone. She was immensely beautiful in her anger in a way that Elizabeth Boreal, for all her natural gifts, could never hope to match.

'Anyway. Anyway. I am here because you have absconded with an item of Boreal Foundation property. Where is the alethiometer?'

'It is here, safe with me.'

'Show me!'

Lyra sighed. 'If I must. It is in the other room. Will you wait?'

'Yes, if you leave your gigolo here with me as an assurance of your good conduct. I have men outside, as I expect you are aware.'

Lyra left the room with Pantalaimon on her shoulder. Lady Boreal stood up and inspected me. 'Tell me about yourself, Peter Joyce. Where are you from?'

'Tring, my Lady.'

'Tring?'

'By the Grand Junction canal.'

'Oh! The canal! Are you a gyptian, then?'

'No, my Lady.'

'Oh, good. I detest the gyptians. They smell so.' She put a finger under my chin. Her serpent-daemon's tongue hovered within an inch of my skin. I stood as still as I possibly could.

'No need to be shy, Peter! I'm sure we can get to know each other much better than we do now. Don't you think our daemons would like to become better acquainted? Where is she, now? Do show her to me. What's the dear love's name?'

__

Trapped! I looked around wildly. Through the window I could see, standing near to my Death but apparently unable to see him, a couple of blue-uniformed men carrying side-arms. Lady Boreal's eyes followed mine. 'Don't worry about them, Peter. They're terribly discreet. They won't butt in on us unless they have to. Now then, let's have a look at her.'

There was nothing I could do. I reached into my pocket and took out the squirrel. As I did do, the pain of our separation, which had been lying dormant while Lyra and I had been close, flared up and I gasped. Elizabeth smiled, not understanding.

'My word! This is exciting! Parander…' Before I could move, the serpent-daemon had seized the squirrel in his coils.

'Let go of him!' Lyra stood in the doorway with the alethiometer in her hand. 'Let go!'

Shock and surprise distorted Elizabeth Boreal's face, robbing it of its beauty. Parander hissed and fled to the safety of his mistress' sleeve. The squirrel fell from my hand.

'My god! What have you got here? Where is his daemon? That is not her!' Elizabeth pointed to the squirrel which was lying, twitching feebly, on the kitchen table. The serpent-daemon had half-strangled her. 

Lady Boreal advanced to the doorway. She put both her arms to Lyra's shoulders, knocking Pantalaimon to the floor. 'What is he? Where is he from? I know! You have found a window. This boy is from another world! You have found an open window. Where is it? You will tell me. Where is it?' Her voice was steadily rising in pitch. Lyra kept as calm as she could. I could see her face from my position by the stove. I could tell how hard she was struggling to maintain her self-control.

'There is no window. Peter has not come from another world – not one that you would recognise, anyway.'

'But what about his daemon?'

'You, of all people, should know the answer to that question. She has been severed, as you once severed the daemons of innocent children in a place not five miles from here.'

'The Morley Project?'

'If that is what you called it, yes.'

'But – he's alive!'

'The children died, didn't they? All but one, and he is safe. But Peter was severed less than two days ago, as an adult.'

'Then… what is he here for? Is he one of your research projects?'

'That would be more your speciality, I think, Elizabeth.'

'God. God.' Lady Boreal looked at me again. I was still standing motionless by the stove. 'You've got a man without a… Ugh! It's revolting! You've got a man without a daemon and you're using him for… for your own disgusting purposes. It's… foul. I don't believe it.'

'He is a man without a daemon. He is in terrible pain because of it. But I am not using him for sexual purposes. I am looking for a way to save his life.'

Elizabeth Boreal's face was twisted with anger and disbelief. 'You would say that, wouldn't you! Well, we'll see.' She went to the door. 'You two! In here!' The two Boreal guards came in, their guns at the ready. 'Take this lady and gentleman outside and keep them safe.'

Lyra and I allowed ourselves to be manhandled out of the kitchen and into the garden. We stood on the grass, not far from my Death, who had remained impassive throughout everything that had occurred. Lyra was pale but composed. I struggled briefly, but soon realised it was hopeless. The guard was too strong for me.

'Let go of her,' Lady Boreal said to the man who was holding Lyra. 'Go and find some straw and naphtha. This place is dirty. It stinks. It should be condemned as unfit for _human_ habitation.'

'No!' I cried, but Lyra said, 'It's only a building, Peter. Only bricks and wood and reed-thatch. We don't need it any more. Let them do what they want with it.'

'But what about the gyptians? It belongs to them!'

'Shush, Peter. Shush. It will be all right.'

Lady Boreal was paying us no attention in any case. She showed the guard where to put the wood and straw that he had collected. Under her direction he piled it up in up against the walls of the cottage. When he had done this to Elizabeth's satisfaction he fetched a carboy of naphtha from the shed and sprinkled it over the piles of flammable material.

'That will do, Hitchens. Stand back.' From her shiny, gold-clasped handbag she took out an object that I recognised immediately. My heart sank, though how it could have been possible for it to sink any further I cannot tell. The gun. Every time – at every low point of my life – this gun appeared. Small, made of some slick, black material, powerful, lethal, corrupting. Of course it was Lady Boreal who possessed it in this world of Time.

She lifted it and stabbed at the trigger. A bolt of lightning streaked from the gun's muzzle and splashed against the cottage wall, instantly turning it cherry-red with heat. The spirit-soaked straw and wood burst into flames which licked up the walls until they reached the roof. With a roar the thatch caught fire. The weather had been very dry these last few weeks.

As I stood, held by the firm grasp of my captor, I was filled with a sense of terrible outrage. How dare they! Just because the Boreal Foundation was rich and powerful, how dare they behave as if they owned the country and all the people in it? In my world the power of the Boreals had waned with Elizabeth's death. In fact, despite my own feelings of not belonging there – the appearance of the time-ghosts in particular – my world was a far better place than this one. My survival and Elizabeth's death had made a real difference; and the pain and horror that Lyra and I had suffered from the nightmares that Lady Boreal had sent us had, in some way that I did not fully understand, caused that difference. In this world, the Boreals had had it all their own way, and the result was that life had been diminished for everybody.

The fire had thoroughly taken by now, and was generating a fair amount of heat. My Death still stood in his place on the lawn, as if unaware of the blaze that was forcing the rest of us to step back and hold our hands up in front of our faces to shield them from the glare.

The cottage was burning fiercely. All the things that Lyra and I had brought from Oxford, except the alethiometer, were being destroyed. My spare clothes, my precious book. And then I realised… Viola. The squirrel. I had left her lying on the kitchen table. I could not leave her to die. This makes no sense, I know. That squirrel was not really Viola, my beloved daemon. Whatever it was that had animated the creature with the life which our teachers call transcendent or metaphysical, it was not there now. She was an animal, nothing more and nothing less. Hers was a small life, and no longer connected with mine.

I had asked Lyra if she would kill me if I asked her to, and she had refused. Was I still seeking to embrace my Death? And had I been subconsciously waiting until an opportunity came which would allow me to die without my death lying on her conscience? I still do not know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that my guard had allowed his concentration to wander and that it was easy for me to twist out of his grip and run forward towards the cottage. I ran _through_ my Death – he had become as insubstantial as a cloud – crying, 'Viola, Viola' at the top of my voice. Lyra screamed, 'No, Peter. Stop!'

My clothes were already beginning to smoulder as I crashed through the kitchen door. Orange light flared beyond the window, but the glass was still intact and the room was clear of smoke. 'Viola, Viola!' I cried again, but I could see nothing. The squirrel must have jumped from the table and taken refuge somewhere. Remembering something I had been told about what to do if you were caught in a fire, I threw myself to the floor. I scrabbled over the red quarry tiles, looking for the squirrel under the sink, the dresser, the washtub. Nothing. Wait. The door which led to the hallway was slightly ajar. Lyra couldn't have closed it properly when she returned from her room with the alethiometer. Still prone on the tiles, I opened the door and squirmed through into the hall.

The sound of burning was much louder in there. Although the fire had been started at the back of the cottage the roof had already fallen in and the stairwell was acting like a chimney, sucking in air to feed the flames. The heat was appalling and I quickly realised that I would not be able to stay there long and survive unscathed. 'Viola!' I shouted. 'Viola!' although there was little chance that she would be able to hear me, or understand me if she did. Still no sign of her. It was time, I knew, to make my escape from the inferno. My hair was singeing – I could smell it, choking and acrid in my lungs. One last try, and then I must make for the front door and attempt to get out that way.

'Viola!' Nothing… and then I saw a small grey movement under the open staircase. I lunged forward with my hand held out and caught her. She was trembling with fear, her whiskers shaking violently and her tail curled up against her back.

'Come on now. Let's get out of here!' I said to the squirrel and, getting to my hands and knees and tucking her into my pocket, I made for the front door. But it was then that the staircase collapsed, in a shuddering crash of falling timbers. A gust of fire leapt across the hall towards me and forced its way into my lungs, burning the life out of me from inside. I screamed in fiery agony, breathing flame, and my body arched back, twisted and distorted. My head hit the wall in a flash of vivid pain, and my eyes blinked red, and I heard and saw no more.


	20. I Attain my Heart's Desire

_I Attain my Heart's Desire_

_riverrun_

James Joyce_ – Finnegans Wake_

I was standing on the platform of a railway station. The train was getting ready to depart – steam was cascading from its cylinders and smoke pouring from its chimney. I thought that I would like to get on board, but the guard slammed the carriage door in my face. 'No! You can't go in there. You're not a wizard!' 

* * * *

I hovered over a blackened land. Below me, rivers of molten rock glowed in the darkness and in the distance a volcano spurted fire into the lowering sky. The air was full of the sounds of destruction. A tower fell in a cataclysm of stone and smoke. Rescuing eagles came, but they did not come to rescue me.

* * * *

I wanted to go through a Door, which was guarded by a lion and a king in shining armour. The lion seized me with his eyes and his voice spoke in my inner ear. 'No, Peter. You may not pass.'

'But I must! I must go through.'

'No,' said the king, who was also called Peter. 'This is not your story. You must go elsewhere.'

* * * *

Outside the city, buried under the desert for untold millions of years lay a wonderful craft; so fast that it could cross from one side of the Cosmos to the other in the time between the rising and the setting of the sun. A simple command would awaken it and bring it to me, but I did not know the word.

* * * *

I stood at the entrance of an ancient burial mound. Behind its dark mouth lay, I knew, a great and wonderful mystery – one that I longed to discover. But the chamber under the tomb was only ten feet deep, and I could proceed no further.

* * * *

The ships were so old that they had become part of the city, clustering together to form the towers of the citadel that lay at its heart. I knocked at the door of one of them, and the gatekeeper opened a small hatch in it. 'What do you want?' he asked.

'I desire entrance.'

'Are you a member of the Order of Saint Katherine? Are you a seeker of Truth and Penitence?'

'No, I'm a clockmaker.'

'We have no need of clocks. The hours here do not move at a constant, mechanical rate. Time is a variable quantity for those who suffer.'

'Then must I go away?'

'You must. You cannot enter; for those who enter, but are not of our Order, may never leave.'

* * * *

I was writhing in fiery agony. I was bathed in autumnal coolness. I was falling through the sky, for miles and miles. I was shipwrecked in a submarine craft, trapped underneath the Polar ice. I was stranded in a helpless orbit around a far planet. I was tied to the tracks, and a train was coming. 

* * * *

I was standing on the bank of the river Isis, in Oxford. To one side of me stood Magdalene Bridge, and the junction of the Isis and its tributary, the Cherwell. Above my head the trees were swaying and the clouds flying in the morning air, and on the river young men and women dressed in brightly coloured blazers and long white dresses were enjoying a holiday, in punts, skiffs and rowing boats. I sat down on the grass and watched them. They were happy for now; free from lectures and essays, tutorials and seminars for this one summer's day. They did not know that they were happy, perhaps. They did not know how lucky, and privileged and carefree they were and they would not know it, until their fortune and favour were taken away and the worries of the world handed over to them instead. _Some bargain_, I thought; but nevertheless I envied them and wished that I could join them. I wondered what I would do now. Should I try to find Shoe Lane again?

'Hey!' came a loud cry from the jetty by the bridge. I turned. 'You there!'

'Me?'

'Yes, you!' The speaker was a middle-aged man, in a striped shirt, moleskin trousers and a scarlet neckerchief. 'Young lady wants to speak to you! Come on!'

I walked over to the bridge. 'Where?' I asked the man.

'Over there!' He pointed to a punt tied up by the riverbank. In it sat a very pretty girl of around twenty years old. Her head was shaded from the sun by a wide-brimmed straw hat, decorated with white roses, and she was wearing a summer frock of pastel greens and blues. At her feet lay a wicker basket.

I stopped, confused. 'Go on!' said the man. 'It's all paid for. You can thank Miss Silvertongue there for that. Go on! What are you waiting for?'

What indeed? The man handed me a wooden pole, about eight foot long and shod with iron at one end. 'Mind you don't lose it! And remember, there's a wet boat charge. You be careful – no messing about with the cushions!'

I stepped into the punt, holding the quant gingerly in both hands, like a tightrope walker. The man on the shore untied us and threw the mooring rope into the craft. 'Have a good afternoon,' he said. 'Take care!'

'I will,' I replied, wondering how I was going to manage. I made a misstep, the punt wobbled violently from side to side and I was nearly thrown into the water.

'Oh, Peter!' Lyra was almost crying with laughter. 'You do look a sight!'

'I'm sorry,' I said, blushing. 'I've never done this before.'

'Then sit down and give me that thing!' Gratefully I sank into the cushions at the bottom of the punt. Lyra stood up and made her way gracefully past me. She picked up the pole and, with deft movements that defied its weight, pushed us away from the side of the river and into the middle of the stream. The sun shone down on us out of a brilliant blue sky and, all of a sudden, we were alone together.

'How do you do that?' I asked. The quant was solid oak and heavy, and Lyra was so very young and slender.

'It's easy when you know how. Look, the pole spends most of its time in the water, so it's buoyed up by it. And you don't lift it straight up, see, but at an angle, like this.'

'I see. But is it the done thing, for a young lady to wield the pole and a man to lie in comfort on the seats watching her?'

'Oh, it's quite the fashion these days. We're awfully emancipated here!'

I laughed, and lay back on the cushions, facing towards Lyra and the stern of the boat. She had built up a fair turn of speed with very little apparent effort and we seemed to be skimming over the surface of the Isis. I assumed that we were going so fast because we were being carried by the current and I wondered if we would have to turn around before long, ready for the long upstream battle home.

After a while I gave up trying to keep track of the time. It seemed to me that I was no longer part of Time and that, although it still passed, it was not a form of time that I was familiar with. I mean by this that my personal time and the time of the world around me were no longer connected to each other, and that, for example, a single beat of my heart might take as little as a second of world-time, or as much as a year. I would never know the difference, for the only time I was experiencing was my own. Time passed, as I say, but I did not measure its passage. I knew that time was passing because events were now following one another in a more or less conventional sequence, as they had not done up until now. Towns and bridges, fields and woods flew past us, ghostly against a blurring background of blue, green and white. Their time was not mine, or Lyra's.

'When do we have to take the boat back?' I asked, after an immeasurable interval. 

'Oh, don't worry about that,' Lyra said. 'We can keep it as long as we like. We're free, you see.'

'Free?'

'Yes! Can't you tell?'

I thought for a moment. Overhead, clouds appeared and disappeared like fleeting wraiths. Our boat's wake trailed behind us. How could that be, if we were being carried by the river-current?

'You mean we're free now. Free for a while.'

'Yes, that's what I mean. We'll stop for lunch in a minute. Are you hungry?'

I hadn't thought about it but, yes, I was. How long had it been since I had last eaten? Lyra steered the punt towards the bank and ran it aground under a stand of willow trees. We found ourselves enclosed within a green tent of shade, protected from the sun and the wind alike. 'Now,' said Lyra, brushing her hair away from her face with both hands. 'Let's go ashore and see what they've put in the hamper for us!' I helped her carry the basket and then went back to the punt for the cushions. There was a tartan rug there too, which I spread out on the ground.

'Tuck in!' said Lyra, with a grin.

Later, when we had eaten our chicken vol-au-vents, ham rolls and green olive salad followed by strawberries and cream, and drunk a golden sparkling wine from tall-stemmed glasses, and were sitting side by side under the trees, I asked the question that had been on my mind all day.

'Lyra… This is a dream, isn't it? It can't be real.'

'Real? What do you mean by real?'

'I mean, it's not like real life. I'm not really free to go boating with you, there's no such thing as a perfect summer's day and you're not twenty years old any more.'

'It's very rude to remark on a lady's age. I'm not going to tell you anything if you talk to me like that.'

'Why not?'

'Because you don't deserve an answer!'

'Oh!' I stood up. 'You're just making fun of me!'

'Shush, Peter, shush. Do sit down. I want to look at you.'

'Look at me? What on earth do you want to look at me for?'

'Peter, don't you know? Don't you know, even now?'

'Know what?'

'All that time. From the first time I saw you, in my rooms, standing in the doorway holding my mantel clock. The funny way you looked when you saw me. The light on your face. The way your hair flopped over your eyes…'

'It was wrapped up in string and brown paper…'

'The clock, yes. Of course it was.'

'Lyra…' My mind was confused by wonder. 'Are you saying that… that you loved me too, all along?'

'Yes. That's exactly what I'm saying.'

'Oh… Oh you've no idea how much I wanted to…'

'It was the same for me.'

'But what about Will? How could you love me without betraying Will?'

'We made an agreement, the day we parted, that if either of us found somebody special we would not let our old love stand in the way of fulfilling a new one. It was part of the agreement we made; to live the best lives we possibly could even though we could never be together again.'

'But you did see each other again.'

'It was too late by then. All we did was hurt everbody; you, ourselves, and John and Judy Parry.'

'Arthur told me not to tell you about how I felt. He said you would have to send me away if I did.'

'Oh, but it was so impossible! I was thirty years older than you. We would have lost everything, both of us. The world would never have allowed us to live together.'

'It would have been worth it, just the same.'

'Perhaps. Yes, it would.' Lyra shook her head. 'Peter, I want you to promise me something.'

'What is it?'

'Promise me that you will remember the agreement that I made with Will. Do not let an old love stand in the way of a new one. And Peter…' She gave me a girlish smile.

'Yes?'

'We are not in the world now; and this is not a dream.'

A great and giddy hope rose in my heart. It threatened to choke me with joy.

'We are free, just as I told you. Oh! Come here, you big silly!'

I lay down next to Lyra and held her close to me. The sun shone, and the trees danced in the wind, and we were safe in our secret house of verdant willow. 

* * * *

Later, we lay together on the cushions in the bottom of the punt, paying little attention to our surroundings, and let the current sweep us downstream. The river carried us dozens of miles, I think, past Abingdon and Wallingford and Benson and other places unknown to me. We did not see those towns go past, nor did we consciously navigate our way through the bridges and locks that should have barred our passage, but nevertheless as the afternoon drew slowly on we eventually came to a place that I recognised. A bridge of grey stone crossed the river, linking the flat meadows on the left-hand-shore with the slipways, hotels and shops on the right. At the town end of the bridge was a crossroads, with a tall church tower to one side. The main street, I knew, went directly uphill from there and one could, if one wished, catch a train to Aldbrickham from the railway station which lay a few hundred yards to its left.

The church clock struck five as we drifted under the bridge. Lyra stood up in the stern once more and used the pole as a steering oar, manoeuvring us to a mooring position in front of an hotel named after an angel. There were many other boats moored there; of all sizes from rowing boats to day-launches, from cabin-cruisers to great riverboats with seats for hundreds of passengers.

'Off you go now, Peter.'

'Go? Are you sending me away already?' I looked at my feet.

'I will never do that, love, but there's something that you must do. Something very important.' Why did Lyra seem so sad? What sudden pain had stabbed her?

'What is it?'

'I will not tell you. You will know it when you find it. Go ashore now, Peter, and walk around the town until you have found what your heart desires.'

'I have already found that.'

Lyra laughed again. 'I know, Peter.' She lifted my right hand to her lips. 'I'll wait for you here. Take as long as you need.'

I walked from one end of the town to the other, past the antique shops and the brewery, the restaurants and the furniture stores. The streets were busy with afternoon shoppers, hurrying to make their last purchases before the shops shut, but they never noticed me. I slipped past them as if I were invisible; a ghost. I did not know what I was looking for, but I trusted Lyra and I was content to wander about this prosperous, busy place until I found what I needed to find, or it found me. However, as the afternoon wore on I realised that, although the town had many things to offer, none of them seemed to be for me so, as the last of the shoppers gave up their quests, and queued up at the autobus stops ready to return home and show their trophies to their families, I began to make my way back to the boat. Perhaps Lyra was wrong, and I would not find what I was looking for today. Perhaps I would have to try again tomorrow. As I walked down a side-street which led down to the river, I found myself standing outside an antiquarian bookshop. The windows of the shop were full of books large and small, brightly-coloured and plain, old and new. It seemed to me that I would like to buy a book, so I walked up to the door (it was set in the side of the building, by a driveway) and opened it. Inside it was like so many of the other sellers of old books that I had visited – full of closely packed wooden shelves of clothbound and paperbound volumes, folio, quarto and octavo. It reminded me of Jim's old workplace; Bigsby and Jarrett in Shoe Lane. Perhaps it was a little tidier than that… I made my way to the back of the shop. I had to climb a shallow step to get there.

There was no counter, just a table standing in front of yet more shelves full of books. A woman was sitting at the table, wearing a long dress of black velvet and bent over a large book; a ledger or catalogue. She looked up as I approached, and I saw that she had fair hair gathered in a knot and wore a pair of wire-framed glasses perched half-way down her nose. 'Hello,' she said. 'Can I help you?'

She had a pleasant voice – rather reminiscent of the posh lady who had bought the Vienna Regulator from us in Oxford, but much friendlier. 'Yes, please. I'm looking for a book.' 

She smiled. 'There're lots here to choose from. What kind of book did you have in mind?' 

'A story book, I think.'

'Ah, yes. They're the best, aren't they?' She smiled once more, and I suddenly found myself liking her very much indeed. 'Is there any particular story that you'd like?' 

'Yes, there is. I wonder – do you have _The Clockmaker's Boy_, by Peter Joyce?' 

'Hmmm. Just a moment.' The woman put the tip of her tongue to a finger and turned the pages of her book. 'Let's see... Joyce, Joyce. I've got lots of _James_ Joyce. Too much, really. Yards of him. Look!' She pointed to a shelf above the window. Hundreds of identical, red-covered volumes were lined up on it. 'I wish the Finnegans would wake up and walk out of here!'

'Doesn't anybody want to read them?'

'They think they do, but when it comes to trying it they find they can't. It's so dense and long, you know. You might enjoy this one, though. It's all short stories.'

She handed me a slim volume from the shelf by her elbow. '_Dubliners_,' she said. 'Gosh, that's such a nice book. Go on, have a look.' I took it from her. 'Try the last story; _The Dead_. It's beautiful. So poignant, so true…'

'No, I'm sorry,' I said handing the book back to her. 'I don't want to read about the Dead just now.' The woman looked disappointed, and I felt briefly guilty for letting her down. 'Is it one of your favourites?'

'It's my very favourite.' She sighed. 'Anyway, it was Peter Joyce you were looking for, wasn't it?' She pushed her glasses up her nose and turned to the next page of the catalogue. 'Ah! Here it is! _The Clockmaker's Boy._ It's listed in here. But it's terribly rare, you know. Only one copy was ever printed. I could try to get it for you…'

'No, that's all right. Have you anything else by him?'

'Yes! There's just one.' She brightened up. 'It's over here.' Brushing past me in a rustle of velvet, she took a wooden step-ladder from its place beside her table and stood it next to the shelving. I watched her as she climbed up it and reached to the back of a previously hidden row of books. 'Here it is!' She smiled again at me, aware that I was looking at her, and passed a hand-written exercise book down to me. I opened it at the first page and read: 

_'You all right there, son?'_

_I looked up. 'Yes, thank you Goodsir.'_

_'You were in dreamland.' My questioner was a middle-aged man, wearing a brown suit and bowler hat. He could have been a farmer, or a country doctor._

_'Pull the flapper down, won't you, son. They're ringing the bell.'_

_I'd completely missed hearing it, preoccupied as I was with the news I had received that morning. Hanging down by the side of the window was a green cord with a brass handle attached to its end. I reached up with my right hand, tugged hard on the handle and with a creak the orange flapper flag which was fixed to the outside of the railway carriage was pulled down into its socket, indicating to the guard who was standing on the platform that all the passengers in our compartment were safely aboard; luggage, children, daemons and all._

'_Time and Peter Joyce_,' the woman said. She had descended the ladder and was standing next to me. 'It's unfinished, of course.'

'Unfinished?'

'Yes. He died. The explosion – it was in all the papers.'

'So he's one of the Dead too…'

'Yes, I'm afraid so.'

'How does the story end? Where did he get to?'

'Take a look.' I tried to open the book at the last page, but its leaves were stuck together and I could not separate them.

'I can't read it. Can you?' I handed the book back. She took it from me – our fingers touched – and opened it. 'Yes, I can. But–' 

'Yes?'

'I'm not going to. Here, you keep it.'

'How much is it? You say that this is the only copy you've got. Is it very expensive?'

'No more than you can afford.'

I reached into the pocket of my trews. 'I have a little money. What is the price?'

We were standing very close to one another. 'The price,' she said, 'is a kiss.'

The punt was still moored by the side of the river, next to the bridge. Lyra was waiting for me, sitting on a green-painted bench on the jetty eating an ice-cream cone, her legs swinging to and fro beneath her. She was ten or eleven years old. An overwhelming urge to confess what I had done swept over me. 'Lyra,' I said, 'I am ashamed. My name is Peter, and I have denied you.'

'I have forgiven you.' She took a bite at the chocolatl bar that stuck out of the top of the cone.

'You know what I have done?'

'The lady who keeps the Books has told me.'

'How? I have only just left the bookshop.'

'All the same, she has told me.'

'And you don't mind?'

'Shush, Peter. Do you have your Book with you?'

'Here it is.' I showed Lyra the exercise book.

'Come on then. It's not far.' She finished her ice-cream and leapt into the punt. I looked around for the quant, but Lyra shook her head. 'Don't worry about the pole, Peter. We won't be needing it. Jump in!'

I stepped into the boat after her, and she untied the painter. Straightaway we began to move. The punt left the shore, passed under the echoing arch of the bridge and proceeded back upstream, driven by an unseen and silent force. Lyra lay on her front in the bows, looking ahead. I sat behind, wondering where it was that we were going, and whether it would be the end of my travels or just another stopping-off point. As the punt skipped over the water, and the boat-houses and meadows to either side fell behind us I found that I could not shake the feelings of guilt that had possessed me as soon as I had left the bookshop.

'Lyra?'

'Yes?'

'It's not as easy as that, is it?'

'What?'

'Forgiveness.'

'Why do you say that?'

'What happened in the bookshop – how could you forgive me so easily?'

'Did I say it was easy?' Lyra turned around and faced me. She was an elderly woman now; seventy or eighty years old, with a deeply lined face and hair altogether white. 'It was not.'

'It seemed to cause you very little pain.'

'I have been in constant pain all day.'

'Because Pantalaimon is not with you?'

'That is one reason, yes.'

'Why did you forgive me? Was it because what we did – under the willow trees – meant nothing to you?'

'It meant everything to me.' Lyra was fifteen, fresh-faced and serious.

'Then…'

'But did you not know? Is it not prophesied? I am Eve. I am mother of all. Does not a mother forgive her children the pain they cause her, every day of her life?'

I could not bear to look at her. The light was too bright.

'Do not worry, Peter. Everything will work out for the best in the end. And look! We have reached our destination!'

The boat had come ashore on a small grassy island, not far from the riverbank. On it stood a building of white marble columns under a broken pediment. It was a temple.


	21. I Learn Something of the Mysteries of Ti...

_I Learn Something of the Mysteries of Time_

_Now the Great Bear and Pleiades where earth moves   
Are drawing up the clouds of human grief,   
Breathing solemnity in the deep night.   
Who can decipher   
In storm or starlight   
The written character of a friendly fate -   
As the sky turns, the world for us to change?   
But if the horoscope's bewildering   
Like a flashing turmoil of a shoal of herring,   
Who can turn skies back and begin again?_

Montague Slater_ – Peter Grimes (libretto)_

We stepped ashore and instantly the punt was whirled away by the current and disappeared from sight. For all I know it sailed all the way down the river Isis to the Pool of London and from there to the great German Ocean. We never saw it again. A short gravel path led from our landing point, through a close-cropped lawn, lined with flowerbeds, to the entrance of the temple and so it seemed natural that we should follow it. Lyra took my hand and led me along the path until we reached the door, which was made of oak; very thick, and richly carved with images of mythical beasts.

'Peter,' she said, 'this is where I have to leave you for a while. Don't be afraid,' she was in her mid-forties now, wearing academic dress of black and white and looking just as she had the day I first met her, 'whatever happens. I will wait for you outside. It is a pleasant evening, and I'd like to sit and watch the swans on the water.'

'What is going to happen to me?'

'You will meet a collector.'

'A collector?' My heart was chilled. 'A collector of what?' I thought that maybe Lyra meant a harvester of souls, or a devil.

'No, Peter. A collector of stories.'

'Lyra? Am I going to Hell? Because of what I did?'

'No, Peter.' And she kissed me on the cheek. 'Did I not say that you were forgiven?' The sun was beginning to set behind the rising ground to the west. The trees on the hilltop were etched into its outline.

'Yes, but…'

'No buts, Peter. Kiss me now.' And I took her in my arms and pressed my lips to hers, and I was fifteen once more and all my hopes and wishes had come true. Oh, how I'd wanted her!

'Go in through the door. Take your book with you. You will be asked to produce it. If you need help, call for me or come out here and find me. I will not be far away.'

I opened the door and walked into the temple. Inside, there was a hall of rich woods and marble, and a ceiling that was cunningly painted to resemble a midnight sky of flying stars and ghostly nebulae, lit by concealed fittings. The impression it gave me was one of great wealth and opulence. At least this was true of the part of the room that was nearest to the entrance; but halfway back into the hall somebody had nailed up a crude wooden partition which had been painted a patchy grey. There was a gap in the middle of it which was covered by a piece of green baize cloth, somewhat frayed at the bottom. On the walls to either side, placed against the murals which an artist of great skill and feeling had painted there, were two rows of hard bentwood chairs, such as you might find in a doctor's or dentist's waiting room. In fact, the only real difference between this place and a doctor's surgery was that there appeared to be no corresponding table laden with out-of-date magazines and comic books to help to pass the time. I wished Lyra had come in with me. I could have held her hand.

I hesitated. Should I sit down on one of the chairs and wait for something to happen, or lift the curtain and find out what lay behind the wooden screen? Simply to wait until I was called – for this was clearly a waiting room – seemed, after my adventures of the past few days, to be rather a weak and feeble thing to do; but I was not sure that to pass uninvited through the barrier might not be seen as arrogance on my part. In the end I compromised. I stood by the curtain and called out, 'Hello! Anybody there?'

Immediately a voice issued from a grille set in the ceiling: 'Kindly take a seat and make yourself comfortable. An agent will be available to see you shortly.' The voice sounded harsh and unwelcoming and I wondered if I had done the right thing so, anxious to appear cooperative, I sat down as I had been ordered.

Time passed. I looked around the room. I got up and walked around the room. I sat down again, and looked around the room again, and tried to calm myself, clutching my exercise book in my hands. Then I got up once more and examined the paintings on the walls, one by one. They were, as I have suggested, all done with extraordinary skill and imagination. The artist had depicted scenes from books I had read – like _Graham's Law_, or _Iron Bulwarks_, or _The Dursten Tapestry_, or _The Junior Craftsman's Primer of Patterns For Timely Emulation_. The odd thing was that every time I returned to a picture it had changed, and in all the time I spent looking at them I never saw the same image twice.

After a long time, or so it seemed, spent looking at pictures and cooling my heels on the chair the voice emerged again from the grille. 'Next,' it said. Only that. As there had been nobody in the waiting room when I entered it and nobody had entered it since, it was pretty clear that "next" meant me, so I got to my feet and walked over to the baize curtain. As I reached it the voice spoke again. 'Room Four,' it said.

I pulled the curtain aside and went through the gap in the partition. Beyond it, the same cheaply painted wooden walls extended into the invisible distance, interrupted at ten-foot intervals by doors of green metal. Door number four was the second on the right, so I walked up to it and opened it without troubling to knock first. I would soon find out what was going on here.

'Sit down,' said the harpy behind the desk. I did so, shocked into silence at the sight of her. All the questions I had been meaning to ask, and the complaints that had been ready on my lips died stillborn before I could utter them.

If I had been thinking straight, if I had remembered what Lyra had told me about he world of the dead, many years ago when she was still alive in my world, I would have been ready for this moment. Heavens! I'd read _Shock-Headed Peter_ when I was a boy – haven't we all? I knew what a harpy looked like. This parody of womanhood, this agony of distorted flesh. The empty eyes, the odour of decay. As it was, I gagged and retched, and it was only by good fortune that I managed to sit on the offered chair, rather than collapse onto the floor.

The harpy must have become used to this reaction, for she gave no sign that she had noticed it. 'Book?' she said, extending a sharp-taloned claw towards me. I handed the exercise book over to her and she took it in silence, neither acknowledging its receipt nor thanking me for my prompt compliance with her orders.

The stench of rotting flesh was terrible.

'Name?' she said.

'Peter. Peter Joyce,' I gulped in reply.

'_Full_ name?'

'Oh. I'm sorry. Peter Carlton Joyce.'

'Place of birth?'

'Tring.'

'Place of death?'

'Cropredy. Somewhere near there, anyway.'

'Cropredy, Oxfordshire?'

'Yes, madam.'

'Thank you. Just a moment.' The harpy was sitting behind, and partially obscured by, a screen which was made of some beige-coloured material. Resting on the top of the desk in front of her lay a tilted panel, into the upper surface of which were set buttons engraved with the letters of the alphabet. It was something like an autowriter, only without any means of feeding paper into it. Next to it stood a white telephone.

'I need to ask you a few questions, Mister Joyce. Please answer them truthfully, and as promptly and as fully as you can. Any undue delay or failure to furnish the information we require may lead to consequences which may include, but not be limited to, the rejection of your application. Do you understand?'

'Yes, madam.' _My application?_

'Date of birth?

'Seventh of June, twenty fifteen.'

'Date of death?'

'Er, let's see, um…'

The talons rapped impatiently on the desktop.

'I think it was the fourth of August, twenty thirty-seven.' The harpy entered the date on her autowriter. 

'Age at death?'

'Twenty-two.' Couldn't she work that one out for herself?

'Father's name and profession?

'George William Joyce. Ropemaker.'

The harpy looked up from her screen, and her pendulous, scaly breasts grated against the edge of the desk. 'Hemp, or wire?'

'Hemp or wire what?'

'Rope.'

'Er… both, I think.'

Rattle-rattle.

'Mother's maiden name?

'Teresa Jeavons.'

'Siblings?'

'What?'

The harpy leaned across the desk. 'Brothers and sisters. Do you have any brothers or sisters?' _You simpleton_, she might have added.

'One brother.'

'Name of brother?'

And so on, and so on. Every time I gave an answer, the harpy banged it in on her autowriter. Every time she asked me a question a gust of foul breath blew in my direction. Eventually, after what seemed like many hours, she reached the final question.

'Cause of death?'

'There was a fire. The house fell down – I was caught under the stairs. I was trying to save Viola.' There, I'd said it. I'd named the grey squirrel Viola, as if she had really been my daemon. 'I don't know if I was burned to death or crushed to death. It all went blank.'

'Thank you. Would you wait outside, please?'

I reached across the desk for my book but the harpy, with a rancid flap of her wings, covered it with her left claw.

'Please wait outside,' she repeated.

I wasn't sure whether outside meant the waiting room or the outside of the temple and, to be honest, I didn't much care. I was tired of being treated like a supplicant for alms at the Oratory, so I pushed back my chair with as loud a scrape as I could manage, slammed the door of the cubicle behind me and, pushing my way through the green curtain and stamping across the parquet floor of the waiting room, I emerged into the twilight outside and followed the path to the water's edge.

It was dark and Lyra was nowhere to be seen. I panicked and ran around the edge of the island shouting, 'Lyra, Lyra!' at the top of my voice. On my second orbit, when I was starting to get desperate, Lyra rose from behind a bank of bulrushes. For a moment I thought I saw a shadowy form moving behind her, but when I looked again it had gone.

'Peter,' she said. 'Is everything all right?'

'No, it damn well isn't. I've been sent out here while that bloody harpy in there reads my book.'

'It's her job,' Lyra said mildly. 'I told you that you would meet a collector of stories. She's collecting yours.'

'So why did she have to ask me all those bloody stupid questions? Who am I, who's my brother, where was my Auntie May born, what was my maternal grandmother's maiden name? What's that got to do with anything? And Lyra…'

'Yes, Peter?'

'What's going to happen to me? I don't know. Oh, I wish I did!'

'Sit with me. Come on, down here by the reeds. And look! The stars are coming out – do you see? Do you remember how they blessed us in the cottage garden?'

The Great Bear and the Pleiades. The Summer Triangle. The North Star. All the lights of heaven were turning on above us. I sat with Lyra and watched the stars, and shared her warmth, and kissed her.

'Who are you?' I asked, after a while.

'What a funny question! I'm Lyra Silvertongue.'

'Yes, I know, but which Lyra Silvertongue are you? I've seen you in so many different forms today. Are you the Lyra who died or the Lyra who lived? Are you alive now?'

'You know… you know that you're dead, don't you, Peter?'

'Yes, I know that. I feel as if I've been dying all my life, one way or another.'

'Shush, Peter. You remember we asked the alethiometer how you and Viola could be reunited, and it said you had to die by fire.'

'Yes, and in no time at all I did just that.'

'Well, when you die you enter the World of the Dead. That's where we are now.'

'It's not such a bad place. Quite pleasant, really.' The river chuckled to itself among the rushes.

'It used to be far worse, believe me!'

'Oh yes, I remember what you told me. "Nobody need fear Death any more".'

'No, only the manner of their dying. This is your own personal World of the Dead, Peter, made just for you. From here, once you have told the story of your life, your atoms will begin to drift apart, at first slowly and then more and more quickly until they are one with Viola's atoms; and the atoms of everyone who has ever lived. You will enter the Dust-Stream, Peter, and become part of the breath of the angels and the light of the stars. One day, when the Story of Life has all been told, there will be nothing but Dust and eternal joy for everyone who has ever lived.'

'And that will be the end? The end of everything? The end of Time?'

'No, Peter. It will be just the beginning.'

We sat under the consecrating stars and listened to the wind communing with the reeds.

'Peter Carlton Joyce! Room Four!'

There must have been a speaker grille fitted to the outside of the temple as well as in the waiting room inside, for the metallic voice crackled at full volume across the lawns to the place where Lyra and I were sitting. I stood up.

'This is it, then.'

'This is it.'

I hesitated. 'Would you come in with me this time, please?'

'Yes, Peter, I'll come with you.' Lyra stood up and hand in hand, like children on their first day at school, we walked across the grass to the great portico of the temple, our way lit by stardust. At the door, I turned to face her. 'Please would you kiss me once more? I need your strength so much now.'

'Of course.' And she did, and all my fears fell away from me and dissolved into the ground at my feet.

'And Lyra…'

'Yes?'

'You didn't answer my question. Which Lyra Silvertongue are you?'

'Had you not guessed?' She laughed. 'All of them, of course! All of them!'

I had thought that the harpy's expression was forbidding before, but she had not been angry with me then. Now she was, and all the torments of Hell were massing on her brow.

'Sit down! I will waste no more time with you, Peter Carlton Joyce, until you decide to tell me the truth.'

'I have been telling you the truth, madam.' I remained standing.

'You have not!'

'I have.' Lyra was standing behind me, slightly to my left. The harpy did not appear to have noticed her.

'Have you now? Then tell me once more; how did you die?'

I drew in my breath. 'Lady Boreal's men fired the cottage. They used straw soaked in naphtha. My daemon Viola was trapped inside. I tried to rescue her, but the cottage collapsed on me before we could escape.'

'And that is your story?'

'Yes.'

'And it is true?'

'Yes!'

'There is no need to shout. Tell me then, if the story you have just repeated to me is true, how do you explain _this_?'

The harpy handed the exercise book over to me, open at the last written page, where I had not been able to read before. I read it now, and as I scanned the lines a succession of feelings – amazement, outrage, despair and, finally, desperate hope – chased each other through my mind. This was a different story altogether.

'Then… then, I shouldn't be here. Look, Lyra, look! That's what I thought was going to happen, but Martin James severed Viola and me before it could. Look!'

I gave the book to Lyra and she read it. Slowly a broad smile spread across her face. 'It does seem that something has gone a little… awry. Madam Harpy?'

The creature twitched, as if taken by surprise. 'Who are you?' she said.

'That you will learn in due course. Meanwhile…'

'Yes?'

'May I borrow your telephone?'

There was no room for us all in the cubicle, so we sat in the waiting room. I arranged the chairs in a rough circle with Lyra and me sitting next to each other on one side of the floor. My harpy sat opposite, facing me and scowling (how could I tell, with _that_ face? But I could) and next to her was the fourth member of our party.

'Lyra Silvertongue,' she said. 'It is indeed a pleasure to see you here, but a surprise too. I had not known that you were so intimately involved with this young man.' Was there a hint of accusation in her voice?

'Gracious Wings.' Lyra bowed in her chair. 'Peter and I have been friends for many years.'

'More than just friends, I think.'

'Yes, much more than that.'

'Good…' Gracious Wings looked closely at me. 'Is there something you would like me to do for him? I understand that there is some slight misunderstanding regarding the manner of his death.'

Lyra sat very upright in her chair. 'Gracious Wings, you saved my life once, in the Abyss.'

'It was the least I could do for you, after what you had done for me and my sisters.'

The harpy I still thought of as mine was looking at us both with new respect in her eyes, but especially at Lyra.

'Much later, you arranged for Arthur Shire to be restored to the worlds of life.'

'He had come to us untimely. We have discretion in such cases, especially where a flaw in base reality is concerned.'

'Put it as you will, you returned him to life as a personal favour to me. I know that and I deeply appreciate it.'

Could a harpy blush?

'Now, in this case, I ask you for one last favour. Third time pays for all, they say.'

'My debt to you is not susceptible to the strictures of mensuration.'

'Your name suits you well, Gracious Wings. I knew that when I named you, but it has become more and more true as time has passed.'

It was the harpy's turn to bow.

'This boy Peter, whom I love, is another whose death is not only untimely but, I suspect, may be an outward manifestation of that deeper struggle to which you just referred, and to which it might be better if we did not refer again.'

Gracious Wings bowed once more.

'His deaths are, and have been, inconsistent. Seven years ago, as he counts time, he was saved from extinction by the Warriors, but awoke in a different world. He has seen the time-ghosts—'

'He has?'

'For at least five years. All that time, he was suffering from feelings of temporal and spatial displacement. He was living in the wrong world, all along. Either he, or it, needed to change.'

I was listening with increasing wonder. 'Wait a minute!' I said. 'Are you saying that you can send me back? Back to the world where Lyra is alive? That's the world I was born in, isn't it?' My heart was thumping in my chest. I had almost forgotten, you see.

'No, not that world.' Lyra touched my arm. 'Viola…'

Yes, of course. I could not live in that world, not without my daemon. Anyway, now I knew what was written in my book.

'A world without you, then.'

'For now. For a while. For a lifetime – for the chance it gives you of building a life well-lived for yourself. For the Republic of Heaven…'

Despairing, I put my head in my hands. 'So we're going to have to say goodbye to each other again. Again! It's all right for you. You've done all this before, with Will!'

'Don't cry, Peter. Please don't cry. Believe me,' she came to me and held both my hands in hers, 'It hurts me just as much, every time I say goodbye to somebody I love. It wrenches my soul every bit as much. Every little bit…'

The moment was near, I knew, when we would have to part until the world of Time came to its end.


	22. I Reenter the World of Time

_I re-enter the World of Time_

_We shall not cease from exploration  
And the end of all our exploring  
Will be to arrive where we started  
And know the place for the first time.   
_

Thomas Stearns Eliot_ – Little Gidding_

We stood, the four of us, on the grass in front of the temple. The sky above us was still dark, and the stars still shone silently down on us, but to the east the merest hint of a glow on the ridge of the hills above us foretold that the new day would not be long in coming.

'Peter,' Lyra said, 'You have a choice to make. You are dead, as you know, and you can choose to accept the Gift of the Dead – to merge with the stream of life and become one with all life, being and thought. But there is another way, thanks to the kindness of my friend Gracious Wings.'

'You see,' said the harpy, 'Time can be regarded in more than one aspect. The first view – and this is how it is usually perceived by mortals – is that Time is a river.' Her wing swept over her head, indicating the Isis as it bubbled past us. 'It starts at birth – its watershed – and ends at the sea, in death. A mortal enters its current and is carried along by it all his life, part of its flow and unable to leave it. That is one way of looking at it. Another view is the one we have now. We are standing by the side of the river, and it is passing us. We can dip into the river, or cross it. We can swim in it. We do not have to stay in one place on the banks of the river, but can go up or downstream as it suits us. That is the viewpoint of the immortals.

'But there is yet another way of looking at Time; a third way. My colleague Griselda has something of yours, which can be returned to you if you wish. It is a book. What, would you say, does a book comprise?'

'Er, pages. Writing. Words.'

'And what do the words tell?'

'A… a story.'

'Yes, Peter. A story. Your book contains your story. But more, your book contains your story in the form of frozen time. Each written page is fixed, each unwritten one waits expectantly, ready to receive the next chapter.'

'So the story of my life cannot be changed, madam?'

'Not changed, no, unless…'

'Unless a new page is substituted for an old one,' said Lyra.

'How do you mean?'

'Your lives have become confused, as you know. The Peter Joyce who should have died in the world of Elizabeth Boreal's triumph lived instead in the world where she and I died. You saw the time-ghosts as the result of living in the wrong world.'

'I don't understand. I thought that I saw them, and not me as a ghost, because I was already dead.'

'That's nearly correct,' said the harpy. 'But you weren't dead. It was just that your deaths had not been fully resolved. But now…'

'Now the story is different,' Lyra said. 'You have died properly – in the fire in the gyptian cottage – in the world that you should have died in to begin with, and the balance has been restored. If you were to return to the world where you and Viola were severed, you would be a real, complete member of that world.'

My heart was blazing with hope. 'You mean that I would be together with Viola again?'

'Yes, you would.'

'Then, what are we waiting for? Let's go!'

'Wait, Peter. I said, you have a choice. If you agree to accept your death now, fully and forever, then bliss will be yours very soon. It will be as I have told you – you will become a living, breathing part of the life of the cosmos. It is an unimaginable state, and one greatly to be desired. You and Viola will be united, not just with one another, but with the hearts, minds and souls of all who have ever lived. This is absolutely certain.'

'Yes… I see.'

'The other way is much less sure. You know of the pains of death.'

'Yes.'

'The situation into which you will be restored is one of very great peril. It is very likely that you will suffer an agonising death almost immediately after you are returned to life. It is quite probable that, even if you live, you will be injured, and quite possibly crippled for the rest of your days. You could be facing a life of great pain and discomfort, years and years of it. Are you prepared to take that chance? Are you prepared to die yet again?'

'Let me think,' I said. I walked away and stood by the side of the river.

Actually, I had practically made my mind up already. To surrender my life now, when only twenty-two years of it had passed, seemed like chickening out, as they say. What was death, after all, but a momentary kindness? But another voice spoke in my mind, an echo, perhaps, of Viola's. _Remember Master James_, it said. _Remember how long he took to die. Remember the pain of it, the indignity. The hospital corridors and the smell of death. We could escape all that. We've earned it._

I helped Master to die well, didn't I?

_Yes, but who would help _you_?_

Somebody would, I'm sure.

_You know the risks? You know what's going to happen?_

Worse things have happened at sea.

_Look up to the sky, Peter. They're waiting for us. We could join them now._

The stars were still there, although the rising flush of the dawn was beginning to drown them out. Infinitely remote, infinitely beautiful, infinitely desirable. A part of me yearned to be there now; to plunge into the Dust-Stream and splash among its billows, raising sparks of precious golden fire around my shoulders. But now, knowing that it would wait for me for ever if need be, knowing that my life was not yet fulfilled, knowing that to leave the worlds of life now would be a form of cowardice, I lifted my face to the heavens and said, _soon. But not yet_.

Isn't that the English way, to defer joy?

'I see that you have decided,' said Gracious Wings on my return.

'I have.'

'Then you must say your goodbyes.'

I stepped forward to the harpy who had interviewed me. 'Madam Griselda. I bid you farewell, until we meet again. Will you wait for me?'

'I will wait.'

'Then we shall meet as friends. Here's my hand.' We shook hands and the harpy returned my exercise book to me, withdrawing with a low bow, which I reciprocated. Lyra came to me next.

'Peter, you will be going with Gracious Wings, so I will say goodbye to you now.'

'Goodbye, Lyra.' I stammered the words.

'You know that it will not be forever.'

'I know.'

'Then kiss me now, and wish me well. And remember our perfect afternoon, and our love beneath the willow trees.'

'I will always remember them.'

We embraced each other, and kissed for the last time. And in the ever-growing light I saw her face, and in it I could see all the Lyras I had ever known; from child to old lady, from girl of ten years to lovely woman of twenty, and finally the Lyra I had first met, serene and confident, dressed in a Jordan College gown of fuligin black, with her hair a golden halo around her head, catching and transforming the light of a cold winter's day.

'And Peter. Don't forget the promise!'

I shook my head, unable to speak, blinded by our shared tears. When I had blinked my eyes clear again, she had gone. Bereft, I turned to Gracious Wings.

'What do I have to do?'

'Stand straight, with your arms held loosely by your side. Do not be alarmed by anything you see, for I shall not let you come to any harm.'

There was danger, then? I did not care. The hollowness inside me – my loss – was a physical force, threatening to leap out and strangle me. I did as I was told.

The harpy stood behind me and wrapped her arms around my waist, clutching my body close to hers. I struggled momentarily then, realising what was about to happen, relaxed as best I could. 'Good,' said Gracious Wings, and with a massive thrust from her outstretched wings we leapt into the sky.

The ground fell away from us at dizzying speed. The harpy's arms tightened their grip around me as with every beat of her wings we soared higher and higher. Each upward surge threatened to tear me away from her grasp and I was glad of her strength and power even as I recoiled from the rough, scaly texture of her skin. Again and again and again – ever higher, until I could see the river below me with the stars clearly reflected in its waters, and the small island with the white marble temple on it and, coming quickly into view, the town. A few lights were already showing in the shops and houses and a lorry was crossing the bridge from the Berkshire side, carrying milk, or farmers' produce to market. My stomach lurched, and I was seized by a terrifying sense of vertigo.

Beat, beat, beat. Gracious Wings swept the air past us, her body shielding its rushing force from me. Now we were thousands of feet up in the air and I could see the river as a silver thread, running upstream to Oxford and beyond, and down as far as Maidenhead. The line of the onrushing dawn was clear now, like the shadows that the clouds make on the ground on a blustery summer's day. It was racing across the countryside at tremendous speed. I wondered if there were any clouds in the sky this morning and, if so, whether we would pass through them, and what it would be like. I asked Gracious Wings if she knew.

'It's like fog,' said the harpy. 'Quite dull really, and the air becomes turbulent. You wouldn't like it.'

'Oh,' I said, transfixed by the sight of the world below us. It seemed to me that I could see the whole of Brytain now, and the lands to the north and south, Caledonia and Frankland. They were becoming vague and distant in the morning air, though I found that if I focussed on one particular part of the world it would become visible with the most extraordinary clarity. The crowds crossing the Agincourt Bridge in London, the stallholders setting up in Ludlow market, the children being shooed off to school in Oakingham – I could see them all as clearly as if I had been given a spyglass of the most tremendous power, or a theological marvel from John Parry's world. I changed my viewpoint again and again, fascinated by the vision of endless, busy life that I had been granted. Oxford, New Amsterdam, Moskva. It seemed that no place in the world was out of my reach. My dizziness was subsiding now, as if height, and falling, no longer had the same meaning as they had when we were closer to the ground.

Up, up, ever higher. It struck me that we were reaching the sort of height where the air would begin to run out and I might die of asphyxiation. I estimated that we must be tens, or hundreds of miles high, for I could see the curve of the world on the horizon, and the atmosphere – a silvery haze fading into blackness at the fringes. Looking to one side I saw the stars, needle-sharp points of light, free from the distorting prism of the air. How, I wondered, could the harpy's wings still be working, if there was no air to give them purchase?

'We are breathing, and flying in, the aether now, Peter. We always were, you know.'

So we were. And as the world left us behind, and the stars came to vivid life all around us, I saw that the Urth, which I had thought to be a globe, was in fact a great plain resting, like a diamond in its setting, on the top of a mountain whose immensity I could only guess at. The slopes of this mountain were dark, but I could see them running down into the valley at its feet, where a river ran, speckled with light. And on the other side of the river rose another colossal mountain and, at its peak, sparkled another glittering jewel of sapphire and pearl. 'What is that?' I asked Gracious Wings.

'It is another World of the Dead,' she replied, 'made for another mortal like you. There is one for everybody who has lived, or will ever live. Behold!'

By now our height was so very great that I could see that the mountain we had left, and the one next to it, were part of an endless range of peaks that stretched out for ever in every direction. They resembled a sea, with the crests of its waves sparkling in the sunlight. 'Madam,' I said, though I could hardly speak for wonder and amazement, 'Lyra told me once that the World of the Dead was like a huge prison, under a featureless iron-grey sky. She did not tell me that it was so beautiful.'

'It was not beautiful then. It was a terrible place, a concentration camp for lost souls. It was Lyra who made the difference. It was she who liberated us, and the souls in our care. Did she not tell you?'

'She did. She said it was the most important thing she had ever done.'

'She was right. She took the terror away from death. Not from dying, no, there will always be pain in dying. But death – ah, that is different!' And Gracious Wings, the hideous, deformed harpy, cried out in exultation. 'We are free! All of us!'

'Madam,' I said after a while, when gravity's pull had all but disappeared and only the constant beat of the harpy's wings told me that we were still moving through the heavens, 'Back there, on the island, you spoke of a deeper struggle, and Lyra mentioned some people she called Warriors.'

'She also asked me not to refer to it.'

'You have told me that I may die again very soon.'

'Yes. It is quite likely.'

'So would it hurt if I knew?'

The harpy was silent. Then, shaking her head as if in doubt, 'I will tell you a little, even though they say that a little knowledge is dangerous. You have heard of the War in Heaven?'

'Yes, Gracious Wings.'

'Then you know that Lord Asriel gathered together a Great Alliance of free peoples from the Worlds of Life to do battle against the Authority and his Regent, the corrupt angel known as Metatron.'

'Yes, Lyra told me.'

'You already know far more than most humans, then. Now, Peter, did you notice how all the Worlds of the Dead were joined together, to make one greater world on which they all rested?'

'Yes, madam.'

'The same is true of the worlds of life. Just as the Worlds of the Dead are but different aspects of a greater underlying world, so it is with the Worlds of Life. Behind the variety of their aspects lies one aspect. Behind their differing truths lies one truth.'

'So the worlds are one?'

'You saw Lyra, on the island.'

'She was all of the Lyras in one. She told me that!'

'Then can you doubt what I have told you?'

'No… So, the Warriors?'

'There can be no life without conflict, and even in the world that is all worlds, there is struggle. Beyond that, I must say no more.'

Innumerable wing-beats passed. The great mountain range below us receded slowly into the distance until I could see that even it did not extend forever and that darkness clustered at its far-distant borders. For the first time I began to feel fear. 'Is that the Abyss?' I asked, indicating the boundaries of the slopes.

'Yes,' replied the harpy. I twisted in her grip until I could see her face. It was strained with exertion. 'Is that where we are going? To the Abyss?'

'No, Peter. Look!' I could see pass Gracious Wings' shoulders now and through the constant pulse of her pinions caught sight of a nacreous glow above us, like a layer of cloud in an Urthly sky.

'What is that?' I asked.

'We have left the Worlds of the Dead, and are approaching the Worlds of Life.'

'Are they hills too?'

'Some are. Some are spheres, floating in space. There are many other worlds that are flat, or carried on the back of giant beasts, or which consist solely of interlocking tunnels in hyperspace.'

'What form does my world take?'

'It is a blue-green globe, orbiting an ordinary star at a distance of ninety-three million miles. Other planets orbit the same star, although they are not inhabited – at least not by life as you know it. It is a common enough form of world, or universe.'

That came as a relief – to know that my universe was ordinary. It helped to restore some sense of reality. I turned around again in Gracious Wings' arms. The Worlds of the Dead were now only a faint glimmer of light beneath us and I felt the urge to wave goodbye to them. 'That is good,' said Gracious Wings. 'Now, hold on tight!'

The entire cosmos spun dizzily around us. The harpy did something complicated – a sort of back-flip, I think – and we were now facing in the opposite direction from that we had come from. To my astonishment, my sense of up and down had also rotated, so that the world which now appeared to me was quite definitely _below_ us. Our velocity must have been beyond measurement for, although there must have been uncountable millions of worlds in the cloud-layer which I had seen, it seemed, only a few minutes before, we were already approaching a clearly distinguishable individual world. In appearance, it was not so very different from the world that I had left, clasped in Gracious Wings' arms, so many hours, days, or years before – a pearlescent ball of silver, blue and green, rapidly growing larger until it filled my vision. The pinions swept and lunged in great arcs above our heads. Gracious Wings was working hard now, slowing us down. Would her strength be enough, or was she becoming fatally tired? I had a frantic vision of us crashing into the ground, or burning up in the atmosphere like a shooting star and clung desperately to the harpy's arms. 'Don't worry, Peter,' she said. 'We are almost there. Have you worked out what you are going to do when you arrive?'

'Yes, I think so.'

The outline of the land of Brytain was clearly visible now.

'You are sure?'

'Yes. I think it'll work'

I could see the course of the Isis glinting below me, and the Oxford Canal next to it. The air – the real air, not the aether – was rushing past our linked bodies at incredible speed.

'The very best of luck to you. Do you know…'

'Yes, madam?'

'You deserve it. Beloved of Lyra Silvertongue, our saviour, you deserve good fortune, if anybody does. May the stars shine upon our next meeting!'

Cars and buses were passing up and down the Botley Road. It was a bright and breezy Sunday afternoon.

'Farewell, Gracious Wings!'

'Farewell, Peter!' I felt the harpy's kiss upon my cheek. Then…

I was sitting next to Jim and Carrie on the floor of their sitting-room. Viola was in my arms. I cannot begin to describe the feelings which swept over me when I found myself once more complete and whole – an intact human being once more, and no longer a severed _thing_. But there was no time yet for us to celebrate our reunion.

'No, Peter Joyce,' said Martin James. 'That is not what I intend at all, although it would certainly fulfil one of my ambitions – to see you dead. Now; let her go!'

I had only seconds in which to act. I prayed that this time I would make the right decisions.


	23. Conversations

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Conversations

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Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

Samuel Johnson – _Life_ (Boswell)

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Jane

It was easy to park a car in this Oxford, especially on a Sunday. I left the Griffith in the High Street, on the south side, and paid a small boy two shillings to keep an eye on it. The Rose tea shop was less than a hundred yards down the road and it was a pleasant day, with a brilliant sun and high-flying clouds. The walk would do me good.

Peter Joyce's old girlfriend Jane Phipps was standing on the pavement outside the café clutching her handbag in front of her with both hands. Her clothes were, like the rest of her, tidy, and well turned out. A pair of court shoes – well polished – medium tan seamless stockings, a navy-blue skirt of a fashionable mid-calf length, a white blouse with a pink bow at the neck under a bolero jacket of bottle-green, topped with a grey cloche hat with a broad blue ribbon wrapped around it.

Jane was as well presented as her clothes. She wore her chestnut hair in a shiny bob cut close to the nape of her neck. She had a snub, button nose, green eyes, a small ruby-lipped mouth and a trim figure. I thought she was an attractive girl in an unspectacular sort of way.

'Jane, hi!' I called out. She turned to face me and I showed her the copy of _Scientific American_ that I'd told her I'd be carrying.

'Hello,' she said. 'Are you Ceres Wunderkind, then?'

'Yes,' I replied. 'Sorry if I'm a bit late. It's such a nice day that I took it easy on the road. Shall we go in?'

Jane and I sat down at a table in the window. 'They like that,' said Jane. 'It makes the place look busy.'

'Cake, or pastry?' enquired the waitress, bustling up to our table and brandishing her notepad.

'Are the bath buns fresh?' responded Jane.

'They was fresh this morning,' was the reply, so we ordered two buns and a pot of Ceylon tea and settled back into our seats. Our daemons sat on the table between us.

'Oh – I'm sorry,' I said. 'I don't think we've been properly introduced. This is Fuchsia.' My jackdaw-daemon inclined her head.

'And this is Montgomery.' Jane's fox-daemon regarded us with alert, wary eyes.

There was an awkward silence, broken only by the waitress, a plump, pretty girl, returning with the tea-tray.

'I'll pour,' said Jane. She did so neatly, putting the milk into the cups first. We drank our tea in silence.

'Are you from Oxford?' I asked, after a short pause. It looked as if I would have to kick-start this conversation.

'Me? Oh, no.' She wiped a crumb from the side of her mouth with a handkerchief which she took from her sleeve. 'I was born in Lark Rise.'

'That's not far. Less than twenty miles away from here.'

'Far enough when you've not got a car, nor money for fares, neither.'

'Wasn't there very much money when you were a girl?'

'Oh no. We were very poor. There were eight of us, and old Aunt Maud in the end cottage.'

'Were you the oldest?'

'Yes.' Jane looked at me with interest for the first time, peering over the rim of her teacup. 'How did you know that?'

'You can tell, you know. First-borns are always special.'

'They get all the hard work, you mean. Me and Mum, we brought up all the others between us.'

'What about your father?'

'Him? Do things with the kids? You're joking!'

'I'm sorry. Was he a bad father?'

'Not bad. Just tired, I think.'

'Agricultural worker?'

'Yes.'

'So, why did you come to Oxford, then?'

'It was our teacher, Miss Thompson. She said my needlework was the best she'd seen in twenty years and why didn't I get a job in the clothes trade. Mum was against it, but when Dad heard that I'd be paid two pounds a week all found he said I could go. "One less mouth to feed, Daisy," he said to my mum," and money coming in." I send them thirty bob a week, regular.'

'So you came here to help support your family. Did you make that outfit yourself, by the way?'

'Of course.'

'All of it?'

'All you can see, except the stockings and the hat.'

'They're very nice.'

'I know.' There was another pause. I was finding it difficult to keep the conversation moving.

'So you came to Oxford. Did you start at Maison Jeanette straight away? I mean, did you get an introduction there?'

'Yes, and no. I started as a lady's maid. My mistress was a girl, no older than me. A Lady Berkeley. Her first name was Patricia, but of course I didn't call her that. She was m'lady and I was Phipps.'

'Was she a good mistress?'

'Yes, but even then – I was only thirteen – I knew I could do better for myself. All the other maids – and I met a few, on holiday or in the haberdasher's – were looking for the same thing. One day they'd meet a footman, or a groom, and they'd get married and settle down. Perhaps they'd become the housekeeper and butler in a big house. They dreamed of marrying one of the sons of the house, but that never happened – the boys' mothers made sure of that. Any hint of interest, and the girl was sent on her way, with decent references to be sure, unless she kicked up a fuss.

'Anyway, that wasn't for me, and when I heard that Maison Jeanette was looking for capable seamstresses I applied for a job there, and got it easily. You see, I knew that if I did well I could end up in charge of the make-up room, or even become a designer. I showed Mamselle some drawings I'd done and she quite liked them, she said.'

'And that was where you met Peter.'

'Sort of. I mean, he was just one of the apprentices in one of the shops up and down Shoe Lane. There are lots of little workshops and businesses in the area and they all have apprentices. Cheap labour, some call it.'

'Do you remember the first time you met him?'

'Again, sort of. He was with a gang of his mates. I think they'd been down the pub – anyway it was in the evening. They'd gathered outside the shop. I was upstairs in our bedroom – we all slept in the attic, all eight of us seamstresses – and heard them out in the road. They were making a noise, so I opened the window. I was going to tell them to shut up. When I pushed up the sash they all saw the light, I suppose, and they turned round. One of them – not Peter – shouted "Whoa-oh! Sarah! Get 'em out for the lads!"'

'Sarah?'

'Yes. Bloody Sarah Timms – pardon my French. I suppose they thought she was hanging herself out of the window for them and showing herself off. When they saw it was only little Jane, they made some coarse remark and ignored me. I told them what I thought of them, but it didn't make any difference.'

'Tell me more about Sarah...'

'Tell it to yourself. Stupid tart – all blonde ringlets and flounces and silly pouts whenever anything in trousers came near. Mamselle always used her if a gentleman wanted a dress modelling. If it was a lady, she'd ask Katya or Rosalinda to do it. One of the taller girls. Not me.'

'All right. So you and Peter didn't get off to a very good start.'

'No. But – I don't know – I bumped into him from time to time. In the course of business; running errands. That sort of thing. He was always polite to me, and sometimes we'd have a minute or two to spare and we'd sit on the barrier at the end of the lane and chat for a while.'

'What was he like?'

'Shy. A bit on the chubby side, not tall. Only five feet nine or so, which suited me. No offence, but I hate the way tall men stand next to you and block out all the light. Nice fair hair, very fine. Almost like a girl's – I was quite envious. Quite a nice voice. He's terribly serious. If you once got him talking about clocks, he'd never stop.'

'He's a very good craftsman, I hear.'

'Oh yes! Have you ever watched him working?'

'Only once or twice.'

'It's amazing! He's like the best of the girls in the sewing room. Everything he does is so precise, exactly right. You can hardly see his hands moving, sometimes.'

'But that isn't why you fell for him, is it? I have to say, Jane, that he strikes some people as being rather boring. He's a bit of a cold fish, they say. Got a one-track mind. Does he ever laugh, or make a joke?'

'Not often, and when he does you don't always spot it, because he's so dead-pan. I mean, he doesn't put on an I'm-telling-a-joke voice.'

'Then what was it? What did it for you?'

'His smile. Have you ever seen him smile?'

'Occasionally.'

'It's enough to melt a girl's heart. This girl's, anyway. Every time he does it, I go all bumpy. It's shy and secret and gorgeous. All the girls in the shop like him, and half the time he doesn't even notice it. That's nice, too.'

'He's not all that good-looking, though, is he?'

'He is! Especially since he got older and the baby-fat went.'

'But you split up when he got older, didn't you? Three or four years ago. Why was that? Did you just grow apart?'

'There were two things, I suppose. First, there was that Professor Belacqua, the alethiometrist. The one who died.'

'He was taking lessons with her, wasn't he?'

'Yes.'

'You do know he was in love with her, don't you?'

Jane looked up from her plate. 'Of course I do! Oh, it was so humiliating! She was really old, wore these horrible clothes and her face was all covered in wrinkles. What was he doing, messing about with her?'

'Lyra affected the lives of very many people. You shouldn't be surprised that she affected Peter's too.'

'Oh, but he'd come from her rooms on a Saturday and he'd be looking really happy. Then he'd see me, and it'd be "Hello Jane. How're things?" and it was like he'd come down to earth with a great big bump.'

'So you took action.'

'Yes, I ambushed him outside her rooms, made him buy me afternoon tea and then I took him down the banks of the Cherwell. I thought, "What would Sarah do?" and then I did it.'

'You mean, you kissed him.'

'Yes I did. Properly, on the lips, like I meant it. Which I did.'

'And then?'

'We became what some people call an item. A good thing I was there too – he started having these awful nightmares.'

'How long did that go on for?'

'Two years, and then the Professor died and they stopped.'

'I hear you went to her funeral.'

'Oh yes! It was amazing, like a State occasion. Like Royalty. You know the King came. I'm sure he saw me.'

'So did the problems go away, after Lyra died?'

'No, they got worse. Peter became so distant, and he began to concentrate more and more on his work. There didn't seem to be any time for me any more, so we slowly stopped seeing each other. Him going off to Brum only put the seal on it.'

'And so you lost track of each other.'

'Yes. I heard about Master James dying and that reminded me of Peter, but I was busy setting up the new business with Julie.'

'Oh yes. Tell me about that.'

'Julie Lock. She was with me at Maison Jeanette. She's the most amazing designer – much better than me. She was wasted there. We used to get together and make drawings of all the clothes we'd like to make up, but whenever we showed them to Mamselle there was always something wrong with them. The fabric was too expensive, or it would never hang right or nobody would buy them. So we thought – stuff this. We'll show her! We're sharing a room in Kidlington now, and we make all the things there. We take our portfolios round all the sewing circles and coffee mornings and charity dos and all the rich ladies look at them, 'cos the drawings Julie does are ace, and then we make the frocks up on a special order basis.'

'Doing well?'

'Quite well. We have some bad weeks. We've had a bad month or two, but I think it's working. Word of mouth, you know. It gets around. We'll manage, somehow.'

'Maison Phipps and Lock! It sounds good!'

'It'll look good on a shopfront, one day. Maybe.' Jane sighed.

I looked into her eyes. 'Jane,' he said, 'If anyone can make it work, you can. If you trust me, I'll trust you. I know Julie. She's got guts. You two'll make a great team.'

'Thanks, Ceres.' Jane smiled, and just for a moment I saw how terribly tired and anxious she was.

'Have you seen Peter since he got back from Bromwicham?'

'Just once, in the Post Office. We spoke, but only because we had to – we were next to each other in the queue. I wish... I wish I'd been nicer to him. He looked awful – really ill and strained. I heard later he's been doing all the work at James and James. They say the place is going bust, since the Master died.'

'Yes. It's not been at all easy for them. There are debts...'

'Debts? At James and James?' Jane's astonishment was plain to see.

We were sitting in the window of the tea shop, as I have said, and so it was that we were the first to hear the roaring of the motor and the rattle of iron-shod wheels as the fire-engine passed, going uphill at top speed. It was closely followed by an ambulance, painted white with a red cross emblazoned on the sides.

'I wonder what's happened,' I said. 'Must be pretty serious.' But Jane was not listening to me. Her face had gone deadly pale, and she was holding Montgomery close to her heart.

'Oh no,' she said. 'Oh no. Not Peter!'

Afterwards, I wondered. How on earth had she known?

__

Elias

I got to the bar first and ordered myself a pint. I was keeping my eyes open for him, but I was still caught unawares when Elias quietly slipped onto the next stool and said, 'I don't mind if I do,' in his soft, insinuating voice.

'Pint?' I asked.

'You're a gentleman. And since you're buying, let's make it Directors', shall we?'

'Gerry,' I called out, waving a ten bob note in the landlord's direction. 'Pint of Directors', when you're ready.'

'Right it is, sir.'

'"Sir", is it?' Elias looked at me and winked. It is not an altogether pleasant thing, to be winked at by Elias Cholmondley.

'Well, I am a regular, you know. And Mister Jenkins is an old friend of mine.'

'All old friends together, eh? Well, that's nice.' Elias took the glass that Gerry had placed on the bar and took a sip. 'Oh. That's not bad.' He drank some more. 'I see you and Gerry like to look after each other.'

'I like to look after all my people.'

'You do, do you?' Elias took another swig. 'So I'm leading the good life now, am I?'

'It could be worse.'

'How?'

'You could be dead. It was a terribly close-run-thing, you know. You owe Peter a lot.'

'Yes. Right.' Elias was not looking at all happy.

We picked up our glasses and found a table in the corner of the bar, near the fire. Elias was shivering, I noticed, despite its being a mild autumn day. I signalled to Mister Jenkins to bring two more pints over in a few minutes.

'Right,' said Elias, 'I've got a bone to pick with you.'

'Only one?'

'All right, several bones, but we'll start with the first one. Have you been putting it about that I'm queer?'

'No, I don't think so. What's your daemon's name again?'

'You don't know, do you? Well, I'll tell you, Mister Effing high-and-mighty Wunderkind. Her name's Florinda. All right?'

'Pleased to meet you, Florinda. This is Fuchsia.' The two daemons exchanged sideways glances.

'All right, Elias, so you're not queer. You're not homosexual. I never thought you were, and I wouldn't have held it against you if you had been. Tell me something, though – have you ever had a girlfriend?'

'Are you trying to wind me up? Are you being funny with me?' Elias' chair scraped back. 'What do _you_ think? Do I look like the kind of bloke the girls go for? Mister lover-lover?' He stood up.

'Sit down, Elias, please. Another pint?'

'Yes. Thank you.'

Gerry brought the glasses over right on cue.

'You're a local, aren't you?'

'Yes.'

'And you live with your mother…?'

'Yes.'

'Somewhere in Summertown, I believe.'

'Yes. We've got a flat above a row of shops.'

'But nobody knows about it.'

'No.'

'And you make sure they don't follow you home.'

'I don't want any of them knowing where I live!'

Elias was becoming uneasy again. He seemed to have only two states – icy, oily calm and furious, agitated resentment. Surely there was more to him than this?

His clothes were, as ever when he was working or going to or from work, immaculate. A suit of fine charcoal-grey wool, with a purple waistcoat that looked like silk and a dark tie, all well looked after. His shoes were black leather oxfords and his hair, dark and cut short at the sides, was pomaded into a strict centre parting. He had his fair share of _amour-propre_, then, despite his narrow, pinched features and oddly deformed, high shoulders.

'Elias, how old are you now?'

'Thirty-four.'

'I see. And how long have you been working at James and James?'

'Fifteen years.'

'Good heavens! That's nearly all your working life. Do you like working there?'

'It's a job.'

'Have you ever thought of working anywhere else?'

'No.'

'Why not?'

'Because,' and Elias looked directly at me out of smoke-grey eyes, 'Master James was one of the most decent men I have ever met. Because he gave me a job when nobody else would, though they'd never say why. Because I'm bloody good at it.'

'Selling clocks?'

'There's no need to say it like that. "Selling." You silver-spoon types, you come over all mealy-mouthed when it comes to making money, or talking about it. It's dirty stuff, isn't it, money?'

'No…'

'Say it like you mean it, Goodsir.'

'I'm sorry. It's just that I don't find the subject of money very interesting.'

'That'll be because you've never been short of it, Mister Silver-spoon. You see, when you look like me you have to try harder to get on with customers. _And_ you have to do it so well they don't catch on that you're trying. You have to make them feel like they're the most important person in the world when they're talking to you. You have to understand them right off, just like that!' Elias snapped his bony fingers. 'You have to get it right first time, every time, else you lose the sale. And guess what, Mister Writer?'

'What?'

'Master James, or your precious Peter Joyce, can be as oh-so-bloody-clever as they like and oh-so-bloody-skilful and oh-so-bloody-creative, but if somebody doesn't sell their work for them they might as well go and play pinochle.'

'That's an American expression. Do you like transatlantic things, then?'

'Yes, I do, especially gangster books. I read them to Mother. She enjoys them very much. I can do all the different accents. Would you like to hear them?'

'Some other time. So Master James kept you on all those years because you're a very good shop assistant and salesman.'

'Yes.' Elias sat back, a little mollified, and finished off his first glass of beer.

'Are you hungry, by the way? They do a good shepherd's pie here.'

'Mother will be making a casserole for me later. But, thank you.'

I nodded understandingly. It was time for a change of subject 'Tell me about Martin James. When did you first meet him?'

'Ten years ago.'

'How did it happen? I didn't think he was allowed anywhere near Shoe Lane.'

'He wasn't. Not while Master James was alive. But he followed me home, despite my going through all the diversions I usually do. He talked to me, like you're talking to me now. He bought me drinks, like you're doing now. He paid for them with real money too, which is more than you're doing, Mister Wunderkind.'

'What was he after? He must have been after something'

'Oh, I saw that. I wasn't as smart as I am now, but I could still tell he wanted something from me. What, it didn't matter, so long as I got something out of it too. You've got to look after yourself first in this life.'

'True enough. What about that daemon of his?'

'I never got used to it. Never. It wasn't right. Not natural.'

'No. Neither was he. When did you last see him, by the way?'

'That Sunday, of course. Wait…' Elias looked puzzled. 'No, he wasn't there. What am I thinking? It must have been in the Kings Arms, a week or two before. That's funny… Still, I got away with it in the end, didn't I? Landed on my feet, you might say.'

Elias' confusion was only to be expected, I thought.

'It was at Peter's expense, though, wasn't it?'

'Peter? He owed me! Have you any idea what it was like for me when he turned up?'

'How do you mean?'

'It all went downhill when he came. We'd had a nice little business going there, Master James and me. We were doing very nicely. We were a team. And then the brat shows up. Apprentice. And then it's Peter this, Peter that. Peter the bright young man. Peter who's going to go far. Do you want to know something?'

'Go on.'

'My wages. I'm paid five hundred and twenty pounds a year.'

'Is that good?'

'For a shop worker; yes, it's not bad. Do you know how much Peter was paid?'

'Not much, I don't suppose. Two pounds a week?'

'Sixteen bob. Plus his keep.'

'So, what's your point? You were paid nearly thirteen times as much as him. That sounds fair.'

'Is it? Well, consider this. How much am I going to be paid in ten years' time? I'll tell you. Five hundred and twenty pounds a year, just the same as now. Master Joyce? He'll own the business. All the profits will go to him. All the hard work I do – selling, Mister Wunderkind – will go to make him rich. Him and that silly little bint of a seamstress. That Jane Phipps.'

'The shop might still go bust. Then he'll have nothing at all.'

'And so will I! If the shop goes under, so will I!'

'That's not what you thought when Master James was dying.'

'Martin James was going to inherit the shop. I'd have been all right. Then that effing will shows up. He's only gone and given the whole place, lock stock and barrel to Peter Bloody Carlton Joyce, hasn't he? Do you know how he treats me? Like a bleeding servant! "Cholmondley do this. Cholmondley, see to that.".'

'Elias, please… He's only young.'

'He's old enough to know better. He took it all away from me, the bastard. The shop, my future, Mother's future, everything. Master James and me, we were all right. We were doing all right. Why did Master have to give it all to _him_?'

'They were two of a kind, I suppose. But look here, Elias, haven't things changed now? Peter saved your life, didn't he?'

'And that makes it all right, does it? Now I've got to be _grateful_ to him as well, have I?'

There were words that I could say that would help Elias, but now was not the right time to say them. Not when he was bent over the table, sobbing, in mourning. I would have to have a private word with Peter; when Viola and he were feeling better.

__

Mistress James

August had shaded into September by the time I was able to make my way to Shoe Lane and the premises of James and James. They had known in advance that I was coming, so when I entered the shop and rang the bell Elias answered it straight away. 'For Mistress James isn't it, Mister Wunderkind?' he asked.

'Yes please, Mister Cholmondley.'

I waited in the shop – clean and tidy, but with its shelves and cabinets almost empty – while Elias went upstairs to the office. There was the sound of low voices and the scrape of a chair on a bare floor. Then Elias came softly down the stairs and into the shop. Lifting the counter top, he beckoned me through into the back of the shop, along the passage by the silent workshop and up the stairs, which were covered with brown linoleum, to the first landing. The office door faced me. It was half-open.

'Come in.' Mistress James summoned me into her room before I could announce myself. I entered the office and closed the door.

'Please sit down, Mr Wunderkind.'

I sat. The chair was stiff and rigid, made of solid oak.

'I would prefer it if you could be as brief as possible. I have a great deal of work to do, as you can see.' There was a pile of papers stacked up on the desk beside her.

'Certainly, Mistress James. But first, please, how is Peter? You've just this moment come from the hospital, haven't you?'

Mistress James shook her head. 'He is as well as can be expected. That is what they have told me, and that is all that I can tell you.'

'Does he know yet? The full extent of his injuries, I mean.'

'No, he does not. He is still under heavy sedation.'

'I'm very sorry to put you through all this again.'

'You mean, so soon after my husband died?'

'Yes, it must be awful. Hospital visits, and all that.'

'How do you know? Do you know about hospitals?'

'A bit. I've worked in some—'

'As an ambulance driver? A porter?'

'Not quite. I sterilised gowns and dressings, and made up surgical packs.'

'That sounds easy enough. What about the harder things?'

'I haven't been an in-patient, if that's what you mean. Not for many years now.'

'That is not the hardest thing, is it, to be a patient?'

'No, Mistress James, it is not. To watch someone die in hospital, among compassionate strangers, that is worse.'

'And have you done that?'

'Yes, I have.'

Mistress James' hands were resting in her lap. Her daemon sat near her, on the top of the desk.

'So you understand, then. Why did you not let me be there at the end? Why did it have to be the boy?'

I was silent for a moment. This was the question I had feared the most.

'Peter is not a boy any longer. He has grown up.'

'You are evading the question!'

'You are right.' I sighed. 'You know how much Peter loved Master James…'

'And was his love so much greater than mine?'

'It was… it was still unformed, like an unsettled daemon.'

'You are being evasive again. Why could I not have been at my husband's side when he died?'

Mistress James was implacable in her grief, as tightly buttoned up emotionally as her widow's garb of black, high-collared and lace-sleeved, as strictly disciplined as her grey hair, in its hard, compact bun. I sighed again. 'It was necessary for Peter. I'm sorry, but there it is.'

'I see. I suppose that you will have your own way in this, as in all matters. You clearly considered that my rights as a wife were unimportant compared with the opportunity my husband's death gave for spurious emoting on the part of Peter Joyce.'

I was tempted to get up there and then and leave the office (and admit my cowardice to her, before she could accuse me of it herself.)

'No, Mistress James, it's not quite like that. A story has a momentum of its own. It carries itself forward independently of its creator. The same goes for the characters in that story. They have an inner life of their own too, which I don't always fully understand. If you'd only tell me a bit about yourself, so I could try to get under your skin a little, perhaps I could make it so that you and the story you inhabit make a better match. You do know I'm very much a beginner at this kind of thing, don't you?'

'Hmmm. Very well, Mister Wunderkind. I was born in the town of Belper, in Derbyshire, in 1975. My maiden name was Prideau. Have you heard of the Derbyshire Prideaux?'

'It is an old Hugenot family, is it not?'

'It is. Very old, and very important in County matters. Out of the last ten Lord Lieutenants of the County of Derbyshire, six were Prideaux.'

'I see. Did you have any brothers and sisters?'

'One elder brother, Algernon, and a younger sister, Gwendolyn.'

'And you were christened Matilda Grace Alexandra Prideau.'

'That is correct.'

'You were privately schooled, I take it?'

'Of course. Algernon was sent to prep school and then to Ercall College. Gwendolyn and I had a governess until we were twelve, and then were sent to the Belper Girls Academy, where we matriculated. I was judged to have sufficient promise to be put forward for the University and, in due course and after taking the necessary examinations, which I will not enumerate here, I gained a place at Saint Sophia's College where I read history.'

'With Dame Hannah Relf?'

'Yes. It was she who conducted my admittance interview.'

'Was it not very unusual for a girl to go up to Oxford in those days?'

'It is still quite unusual. Tell me, Mister Wunderkind, were you at Oxford? Or Cantabriensis, perhaps?'

'No, Mistress. I went to the University of Houghton, where I read Anbaric and Anbaronic Engineering. Houghton is a northern port city, noted for its endemic poverty and lively social life.'

'I see. You are a theologian, then?'

'A practical theologian, Mistress. I deal mostly with calculating engines and their applications.'

'I see. I'm sure that it must be very interesting, for those who are interested in such things.'

I paused. Who was interviewing whom? 'Tell me, Mistress, about how you met your husband.'

'Oh – it's terribly straightforward. The clock in my lodgings had stopped. He came to mend it. I fell for him immediately. Afterwards…' Mistress James shrugged her shoulders.

'Afterwards… what?'

'My family more or less disowned me. You can imagine what they said. They were so disappointed in me, after all. You must understand that I had had to fight tooth and nail to get into Oxford. Eventually, they became used to that idea and became, I think, quite proud of me.

'After I had been awarded my degree, I think that my father thought I would go into the King's Service. Many women do go into governance, you know. I had ambition. I could have been a Minister some day. Imagine! The first woman Minister in the Great Parliament! But I had met my husband-to be by then and suddenly I'd found that I wanted nothing else but to be with him for the rest of my life. So, now I was doing what my family had wanted me to do in the first place – get married and settle down. But now they said I had married beneath myself, into a working-class family, and I was no longer welcome in Belper. I was never a beneficiary of any of my relatives' wills, you know. Nobody ever came to see us in Shoe Lane – only the James family came to Emily's christening. None of them ever knew how good a man my husband was.'

'So, you married a tradesman, your husband. What was his first name?'

'Theodore. "Gift of God".'

'Ah. And his daemon's name was Amanda, was it not. "Loveable". Was Theodore James loveable?'

'Of course he was!' Mistress James' eyes, which had been gimlet-sharp at first, became hazy and remote. 'He was so different from the men I had met in Oxford. They were witty, clever, rich – brilliant, many of them. And some of them were sincere, I am sure. But none of them were kind, as Theodore was kind.'

'Had you not received very much kindness up until then? Were your parents very distant, before you met Theodore, I mean? Were they not kind to you and your brother and sister?'

'They were very busy, both of them. We had a nurse, and then a governess, and then schoolmistresses, and they were good to us, I'm sure, but…'

'I see, Mistress. You once said something to Peter about "bad blood", referring to the James family. Is that what your parents had said to you?'

'You mean, regarding Theodore's brother?'

'Yes. But not only with respect to Martin.'

'Charlie, then. Do you want me to talk about Charlie?' Mistress James' hands, still in her lap, appeared to be wrestling, one against the other. I felt my face flush, and Fuchsia gave me a warning nip.

'No Mistress, I don't. Please don't talk to me about that. When I discovered what had happened to him I… I don't know. I was appalled. Why are we adults so cruel to our children?'

'Because they are cruel to us?'

'No, that can't be it. Not all of it. But in my world, just as in yours, children are sometimes treated quite abominably.'

'You never had a Bolvangar, though, in your world.'

'Ah, you know about that. No, we built our concentration camps for children and adults alike. They all died together, young and old, in the same dreadful ways.'

'And yet…'

'I wondered if it was a special form of envy, unique to this world. Envy of the freedom of children – their mutability.'

'You mean their unsettled daemons?'

'Yes. I'm sure that when your daemon settles it's a wonderful thing, especially if it's in a form that you really want. But Martin… That's strange. I never heard of that before – an adult with an unsettled daemon.'

'But you have heard of Bolvangar.'

'Yes, I have.'

'Then can you not guess what happened to Martin James, when he was very young? Do you think that intercision – the Maybach process – was the only experimental procedure that was performed there?'

'Oh. Oh, good grief. You mean that he was abducted when he was a boy and taken north and… operated on by the doctors and theologians there?'

'Yes. That's what Martin told me, when I showed him Theodore's will. I think he was trying to justify himself to me. It was much too late, though.

'Wait a minute. You told Peter that, after Charlie, you stopped sleeping with your husband. Why was that, if you knew that the bad blood story was a lie? And why didn't Theodore know? Surely he'd have remembered it? I'm sure that _I_ would remember it if my brother had disappeared for several months when I was young.'

'I didn't know! Nobody knew, until Martin told me, not even Theodore. Theodore took the blame upon himself, but for all I know the fault could have been mine. It doesn't have to be anything to do with Martin. Anyway, it doesn't matter now. I will have no more children. Please go now. I must attend to my duties. I have a great deal of work to do.'

'What to do with such a life?' I said to Fuchsia as we walked back down the stairs. Mistress James had returned to her books and letters. 'How can she ever find love again, if she shuts herself away like this?'

'She found it before, with Theodore, and again, with Peter,' said Fuchsia.

'That was physical comfort she was seeking from Peter, not love.'

'Yes – but the capacity is there. She could be so much more than she is. But now… Did you notice, she didn't even ask after Carrie? After all the poor girl's been through, too! I don't know. Perhaps, one day…'

'When the wounds have healed a little. Martin James has gone—'

'For now.'

'Fuchsia, I still don't understand how it was that Theodore James didn't know – or didn't tell Mistress James – about his brother's condition. It's funny. Everybody we've encountered has told us what a _good_ man he was – Peter, Elias, Mistress James, Mister Hurst. But he was hiding something all that time, it seems. Why?'

'He's dead now, and his atoms have joined the Dust-Stream. We will probably never know.'

'Unless he did tell her after all, and she's denying it.'

'Oh. You know, I don't think we've got to the bottom of this. She's so self-contained. I don't know…'

'There's another thing, Fuchsia. She's been visiting Peter pretty regularly. When he comes out of hospital they're going to need a lot of support, not to mention help with the financial side of things. Do you think she'll unbend enough to appeal to the Guild of Temporalists for help? She'll never ask her family, I'm sure of that.'

'The money from Hurst's won't see them through Peter's convalescence; assuming he's ever going to be able to return to work, that is.'

'Then we're going to have to help her, else the shop is going to fail despite Peter's talent and determination and all her hard work. She's in a kind of prison. Let's see if we can't set her free.'

I had parked the Griffith at the bottom end of Shoe Lane, not far from the railway station. In this world it was so outlandish a car that, paradoxically, it attracted little attention from the curious.

'Take it easy,' said Fuschia. 'Don't drive so fast. It'll do you good to slow down a bit.'

'All right.' The exhaust burbled and growled as we set off down the Botley Road, bound for Newbury and the south.

__

Carrie 

'Stop!' cried Fuchsia. I brought the Griffith to an impressively swift halt. 'Look, by the side of the road.'

It was Carrie Mason, sitting on a garden wall with her daemon Adrian by her feet. My heart sank. What could I possibly say to her?

'Come on,' said Fuchsia. 'May as well face up to it. You know you'll have to, sooner or later.' She was right, as usual, so I called out, 'Carrie! Carrie! Over here!'

She looked up, red-eyed. 'Ceres? What are you doing here?'

'I'm talking to people. About what's happened. You know.'

'What do you mean, I know!'

'I want to know how you're feeling.'

'Oh, do you now? What about you? How are _you_ feeling?'

'Lower than the snake's belly, right now. Come on, Carrie. Hop in. Let's go for a drive.'

I jumped out of the car and opened the passenger door for Carrie. She climbed in, her Adrian behind her, and I closed the door.

'What's this?' she said, reaching down the side of the seat.

'It's a seat belt. For your safety. Look, you take the tongue, like this and plug it into that red socket, like this. There you are. Clunk-click, every trip.'

Carrie looked around the red leather interior of the Griffith. 'Coo! I've never seen a car like this before. Was it very dear?'

'Quite dear. I had to sell a lot of books before I could afford to buy it.'

'Is it very fast?'

__

Faster than you'll ever know. 'Yes, Carrie, but we'll keep the speed down today. Now where shall we go? The Rose Teashop?'

'Ceres!' said Fuchsia, dismayed. _Oh hell_. Why did I have to go and say that?

'Jim was going to take me there one day, you know. We were going to roll up outside, like the quality do, and he was going to escort me in. We was going to be ever so grand…'

I opened the glovebox and handed Carrie a pack of tissues. 'I'm sorry Carrie. I don't think I've got off to a very good start with you.'

In the end we went no further than Abingdon. Carrie cheered up a little once the car got moving. It was a fine afternoon, and it's hard to stay gloomy when the countryside is whizzing past you at sixty miles per hour, and the sun is shining, and the wind is blowing in your hair.

'Here, Carrie,' I said. 'Have some coffee.' We had crossed the river and turned right into the meadows on the other side, facing the town. Carrie took the cup from me and held it steady while I filled it with steaming hot coffee from a vacuum flask. I poured another cup for myself and we both drank in silence, while the river sparkled and chattered a few yards away.

There was no more putting it off. It was time to bite the bullet, so I put my cup down on the grass, put my arms out, and clasped Carrie's hands in my own. 'Carrie, I'm sorry.'

The girl's round face was screwed up with tears and her body shook with sobs. 'Why, Ceres? Why? Why did you have to take him away from me?'

__

Who knows all the ways of the heart? I thought.

'Jim died saving you, Carrie. I know that doesn't make it any easier.'

'Was it because we wasn't married? Was that it? Was we sinners?'

'No, I don't think you were sinners. Some might have thought that, I suppose, even in my world, but I don't. Jim… Look, Carrie, I could say he was special – and he was. I could say all the good things about him that you'd like me to say, and all that would do is remind you of all that you've lost. But I can't diminish your loss by slagging him off, either. Do you see what I mean?'

'Yes,' Carrie sniffed. 'I suppose so.'

'And it's no good my telling you that it won't always hurt as much as it does now, because, in your heart, you won't believe me. So instead, why don't you tell me what happened in your own words. Oh, and try this.' I passed Carrie a Snickers bar. She took a bite and smiled, just a little.

'It's nice. I've not had one of these before.'

'Try dunking it in your coffee. I won't mind.'

Carrie followed my advice.

'I don't know where to start,' she said after a few sticky, chocolatey minutes.

'Start at the beginning, go on until you reach the end, then stop.' I smiled in what I hoped was an encouraging manner.

'Well, it started when Peter turned up at the flat with all his stuff clanking away in his bag. He went round the back with Jim and there was a lot of hissing and lights flashing.'

'They were mending the boiler. Brazing the plug back in.'

'Yes, that's what they said. Then Jim got the hose and filled the car up with water from the sink.'

'You were in the kitchen, weren't you? At the back of the house?'

'Yes, to start off with. Anyway, then they lit the boiler—'

'Were you watching?'

'Yes, but then they were just standing looking at it, so I thought I'd go into the front.'

'Right. What did you find there?'

'Not what. Who. I found that nasty creepy Elias, poking around my things.'

'Elias. Just him?'

'Yes.'

'How did he get in?'

'Oh, the front door lock never worked properly. Anyway, I asked him what he was doing in my house.'

'Yes?'

'And he said he was looking for evidence of sin. He was going to report us to the Court, he said.'

'Did you believe him?'

'No. But yes, it was just the sort of thing he might do.'

'And you're sure it was only Elias there? Nobody else?'

'No, just him. Why are you asking me?'

'No matter. Go on.'

'So he said he'd found evidence of sinful practices. It wasn't hard.' Carrie couldn't help smiling. 'Jim and I – we was a bit blatant about it. But then he said he might not report us. He said that if we gave him something he'd forget telling the constables about our obscene ways.'

'Gave you what?'

'Peter's treasures. He wanted Peter's treasures. He'd found the Sony – with all the films in it – by the bed, and he was holding it. Well, I wasn't going to stand for that nonsense. "Give me that back, I said."'

'And did he?'

'No. He just grinned at me. So that was that. I shouted for Jim, and he came in and so did Peter.'

'What did Elias do then?'

'He just kept on grinning. He said it didn't matter what they said or what they did, he was in the right and we was breaking the law. Cohabiting without benefit of clergy, he called it. Is that a crime?'

'Not where I come from, no. Did he find the gun?'

'What gun?'

'It… it doesn't matter. Go on. What happened then?'

'Jim came over to me and held me – bless him – and Peter went up to Elias. "Don't be a fool," he said. "You know this isn't going to work." He held his hand out for Elias to give him back the Sony.'

'And did he?'

'No. He started arguing. Peter said he'd have him sacked, and Elias said that he have him in Court too, see if he didn't. It went on for ages. I thought Peter was going to hit him. I was joining in, too, and Jim. But all the time, Elias just kept on grinning. And then…'

'Then…'

'Then there was this terrific boom – like the Last Trump, it was – and a great big crashing splintering noise, like all the windows breaking.'

'Which they were.'

'Yes, and then there was a much louder bang, and…'

I passed the box of tissues over to Carrie.

'And the whole house just fell on us. Like a pack of cards. And Jim was next to me, and some great beam hit him and he fell against me and I banged my head on the floor and it all went dark.'

'Jim shielded you?'

'Yes. The beam hit him on the head, and he was next to me, so it was him got killed instead of me…'

I took Carrie's hands again in mine. Then I wrapped my arms around her, and held her while she wept.

'And Peter…'

__

Peter

'Are they looking after you all right here?'

Peter Joyce looked up from his wheelchair. 'Oh. It's you. Take a pew.' He waved toward a nearby chair. I picked it up and placed it at right angles to Peter's. Fuchsia perched herself on the arm of the chair. Peter's Viola was resting in his lap and he was stroking her incessantly. He never let go of her in all the time that we spent together.

'It all looks quite nice here. What are the nurses like? Anyone been to see you?'

'Oh, it's all very nice.' Fuchsia and I and Peter and Viola were sitting on the veranda of a white stucco house, tucked away in north Oxford. A convalescent home, well equipped and staffed, and with some progressive ideas about rehabilitation. 'The nurses are nice, too. You just missed Jane.'

Peter shifted in the chair and winced as a sudden pain stabbed him. 'Damn! It's not supposed to hurt there!'

'But it does. You wrote about that once, didn't you?'

'Yes, I did. Not so long ago.'

'But many worlds away.'

'Yes.'

'Peter,' I was feeling very uncomfortable and I expect it showed, 'I've been talking to people, while you've been stuck in here. Jane, Mistress James, Elias, Carrie. They've told me what they think happened. Would you tell me your story? I know I don't look all that much like a harpy!'

'Why should I?'

'Because… OK, I'll tell you. Your version of events differs in one very important respect from Carrie's and Elias'.'

'It does?'

'Yes. Now, shall I put that cushion straight? It doesn't look quite right.' I heaved Peter up in the chair and replaced the cushion behind his shoulders.

'Thanks. Where shall I start, then?'

'Pick it up from the point where Gracious Wings returned you to Jim and Carrie's flat.'

'All right.' Peter seemed relieved to have something to occupy his mind. 'Well, Martin James had just demanded that I give Viola to Elias. I knew that if I did that I would be severed from her again. But I also knew that Martin would have no hesitation in shooting Jim if I didn't hand Viola over.

'So I stood up, and put Viola in my jacket pocket. "No," I said to Martin James, "I'm not going to give Viola up. You see, I know about you." In a way, I did, but I was making a guess, too. You see, I'd done a few sums in my head, so I took a wild stab at the truth. "You were at Bolvangar, weren't you?" I said.

'Like I said, it was a guess, but it struck home straight away, and I knew I'd guessed right. It was something Lyra – the Professor – had said once, about the experiments they had done there. And Martin James was the right sort of age, too. "You're not the Child of God," I said. "You're a broken test-tube or a smashed retort. You're an experiment gone wrong."

'I'm not sure now that that was actually the right way to go about it. I knew that I mustn't let Viola be taken from me again, and I knew that I had to play for time. Precisely how much time, I didn't know. I was dreadfully afraid – soiling myself, nearly – because I knew what was going to happen in only a minute or two.'

'Yes, I thought you probably did.'

'Elias gasped. He hadn't heard of Bolvangar of course – not many of us have – but he's not stupid and he knew that I had spotted something that he hadn't. Martin James tried to bluff it out, which suited me. He asked me where I'd got that idea from, and what story-books I'd been reading. All the time he was waving the gun about. I really thought he was going to shoot me. Or Jim, or Carrie'

'Jim was already dead. Did you know that?'

'No! He was only shot in the shoulder. Martin James said he would recover…'

'He lied, or he was ignorant. You can't fire a charged particle beam like that so close to the human brain without causing irreparable damage to the cerebral cortex. Jim was still breathing, yes, but he was dying.'

'Ah. I suppose that, in a way, it makes it better. You see, I've been thinking that Jim's death was my fault. I could have warned us all to get out of the house while there was still time.'

'But Martin James would not have let you go.'

'No he wouldn't. He was ranting on – you've read the kind of stuff he said before. Well, this was the same, only even more deranged. I tried to signal to Carrie to take cover but she was crouched next to Jim, trying to get him to talk to her, and she didn't hear me. Oh Ceres, in those last few seconds it was like a nightmare. The kind of nightmare where you're trying to shout but your voice is all throttled and it comes out as a croak. This terrible thing was going to happen, and there was nothing I could do to help anyone.'

'And then…'

'And then the car blew up. The Ridgeworth Steamer. It had been cooking away at the back of the house all that time and the pressure had been building up in the boiler. While Martin James was going on and on about Destiny and the Divine Will and the Next Generation, his doom – our doom – was standing outside the back door of Carrie's house, waiting for us.'

'Didn't it have a safety valve? Steam engines have safety valves to prevent blow-ups.'

'Yes, but I think it must have been damaged when we overheated the engine the week before. You know; when the safety plug melted. If Jim and I had been there, instead of inside, we'd have seen it. The pressure gauge was working properly, I know. I'd mended it, just as Jim asked me to. I remember what he said – "We don't want the boiler exploding, do we?"' Peter's face was bleak with pain.

'So that's what happened,' I said. 'I thought so.'

'Well, nearly. The Ridgeworth blew up, like I said, and the whole house shook. Plaster fell from the walls, I remember, and Martin, Elias and I were knocked off our feet. I think the back wall collapsed. Even then, I think we'd have been all right, if it hadn't been for the gas supply in the kitchen. The pipes were old and badly maintained – like the rest of the house – and I think that gas must have been building up under the floorboards for weeks. It always smelled a bit funny in there. When that went up – a second or two after the boiler – it must have lifted the whole place off the ground. It was as if the house was a wild animal and we were its prey. It _pounced_ on us. There was this almighty crash, loads of dust and stuff. After that, nothing, until I woke up in the Radcliffe. And now – just look at me!'

I looked. I could not avoid doing so any longer. Peter's left leg ended in a stump, just below the knee. The left sleeve of his jacket was empty and had been neatly rolled up and pinned to his shoulder.

A nurse came. 'It's time for Mister Joyce's physio. Five more minutes; that's all I can give you, Goodsir.'

'Thank you, nurse. Peter, there are some things I want to tell you. I can't undo _that_—' pointing to Peter's left side, but I can try to help you understand why.'

'Is it because I betrayed Lyra with the Book Lady in the World of the Dead? It that why I'm… like this?'

'No, Peter. Carrie asked me the same question. Don't you know that you are free? Free, and forgiven. The idea of an angry, vengeful God who punishes those who break His laws was abolished long ago. I could never believe in such a capricious God, and neither should you. But you knew that, once you had been given a gift of Time and returned to your world, the normal operation of the laws of the Universe would be resumed. Lyra and Gracious Wings told you, remember? Those laws speak of Chance as well as Destiny. Didn't Mary Malone once speak to you of such matters, on the Downs in Bristol?'

'Event forks… yes.'

'Yes. Good, you remember. Now, tell me. Have you seen any time-ghosts since you returned to this world?'

'No. No, I haven't!'

'Then…'

'Yes! I see what you're getting at, Ceres. I'm in the right place, at last. Even if…' He pointed with his right hand at the vacant sleeve.

'Have they called you a cripple yet?'

'Yes, they have. It's written above the door of the ward. Ward Three (Cripples), it says.'

'Do you know what you are going to do?'

'Do?'

'With your life.'

'I don't know. I don't know if anybody will want me, now I'm… like this.'

'How many visitors have you had today?'

'Oh – Mistress. Jane. Mum and Dad and Tom, of course. Elias turned up yesterday, with a bunch of grapes – I was amazed. I saved his life, you know. I landed on him, after the second blast.'

'Jane was by your bedside all the time that you were unconscious. Did you know that?'

'No.'

'Every day and night.'

'Gosh! That was nice of her.'

'Don't drift apart again, will you?'

'We'll see. It's hard to think about the future at the moment. Not with this missing arm of mine hurting like buggery. But look, you haven't said what happened to Martin James. Where's he gone? Don't tell me he got off scot-free!'

'The answer is yes, and no. Do you remember how you were rescued from Miss Morley, that Saturday in Lyra's study?'

'Some men came and saved me. The Warriors, Lyra called them. They came out of Time, didn't they? That's what I wrote in my book seven years ago, though I only half-believed it then.'

'Yes. Gracious Wings and Lyra both spoke to you of a deeper struggle. You should bear in mind that, for there to be a fight, it takes two sides. Martin James was rescued from the explosion – and Time tampered with – in just the same way that you were before. But not by the same side. I must say no more about this. You have brushed against great, implacable forces, and it is no surprise that you have taken some harm from it. But Martin James… Do you remember how you used to feel, back when you could see the ghosts? Displaced, uneasy, unsettled?

'Yes, sort of.'

'It will be the same for him now. He has been forcibly plucked from his native world. I do not envy him his exile.'

'Meanwhile, the others – Carrie and Elias – do not know that he was present in the Botley Road that Sunday. The flow of Time has been diverted a little, like a stream on the beach. There are significant differences between your memory of those events and theirs. I would suggest that you will find that their memories correspond more closely than yours to the real state of affairs in this world. Oh, and by the way. The treasures – your _twonkies_ – were recovered. They were safe under the bed. Carrie has them.'

'And the gun?'

'Is gone. Gone with Martin James. It won't be seen in this world ever again, Peter. Did you know it was powered by imprisoned Dust?'

'Yes, that's what Arthur said. I'm glad it's gone. It was a horrible thing.' Peter's head fell back against the chair. He clutched Viola with his right arm and held her close to his heart. I got up to leave.

'Peter…'

'I know. Look at me. This is me, for the rest of my life. But I'll find a way. I always do. Things always work out for the best in the end. And look, Ceres – we're whole, Viola and me! At last – we're whole!'


	24. We say Goodbye

_We say Goodbye_

_If Love's a Sweet Passion, why does it torment?   
If a Bitter, oh tell me whence comes my content?  
Since I suffer with pleasure, why should I complain,  
Or grieve at my Fate, when I know 'tis in vain?  
Yet so pleasing the Pain, so soft is the Dart,  
That at once it both wounds me, and tickles my Heart._

Anon_ – The Fairy Queen_

And the months have passed, and the autumn and the winter and the spring too, and now it is summer once more.

A good year, a fine year, a year of making, and doing, and building, and re-building. We have rebuilt many things – Mistress James and Emily James and Carrie Mason and Elias Cholmondley and me. We have remade the shop; transforming it from a failing business to a brisk and successful – or becoming successful, at least – one. We have steady customers now and, if business continues to improve, I will be able to take on an assistant next year. Not an apprentice, for I am not yet a Master, but someone who will be able to help around the place and let me dedicate all my time to the work that I love.

How would it have been for us, I ask myself, if I had lived in another world, where men must carry their daemons within themselves? How would I have been able to follow my calling, without my Viola to hold my work for me and be the hand that I will never use again?

I have never forgotten one thing that Martin James said to me, even though his words were intended to hurt, because they had truth in them too. I had been treating Elias like a servant all those years and it was high time that I stopped. My master had been a good man, a kindly man, but he had been no fool. He would not have kept Elias on in the shop if he had not, every day, made a real contribution to the prosperity of the firm. I had been very foolish not to have seen that myself. So I have honoured Master James' trust and let Elias stay on in the shop. We will never like each other, but we can work together as business partners.

Some day very soon, we will have saved enough money to repay my debt to Mister Hurst, the pawnbroker and Lyra's gift – the alethiometer – will be restored to me, and with it a greater gift; the knowledge of how to read it. I hope that I will use it well.

And now I come at last to Time Present, and it is a Sunday afternoon and Jane and I are lying together in the too-narrow bed in the attic room above the premises of James and James, Fine Clocks and Instruments, Shoe Lane, Oxford. We have been making slow, careful, rapturous love and now, warm and content, we are listening to the Sony playing a sweet, sad song from John Parry's world:

_Ev'ry time we say goodbye, I die a little,  
Ev'ry time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little,  
Why the gods above me, who must be in the know,  
Think so little of me, they allowed you to go._

My mind casts loose from the shores of reality and I drift down an endless river of Time. I do not think that I shall ever again feel that I am anchored firmly to this world, although I am happy and content to be a part of it. The time-ghosts have not returned; as I was promised would happen. But I have seen too many things – the World of the Dead, the Space Between, Cropredy, John Parry's world – to be able to believe as I did when I was a child in the solidity of the ground beneath my feet, or the certainties that once guided the course of my life. What happened, I wonder, in the world where I died in the burning gyptian cottage? What did Lady Boreal and Professor Belacqua do after my death? I cannot help but hope that Lyra broke free of the chains with which Elizabeth had bound her. It would not be like her to knuckle under to her sister – not when there was a Republic of Heaven to build. And what of Martin James? Now that he is gone I wish that I had found out more about him. I believe that he was fearfully damaged by his experiences in Bolvangar. That does not excuse the harm he did to me; but his story must be a strange and terrible one and I do not believe that it is over yet. Will we meet again one day? I do not know, and the alethiometer will never tell me. It tells the truth, yes, but it does not make predictions. Only Time will tell. I sigh, and Jane asks me if I am feeling all right. Yes, I tell her. Everything is fine.

A voice charged with ineffable yearning fills the air of the room:

_When you're near there's such an air of Spring about it,  
I can hear a lark somewhere begin to sing about it_.

Jane pulls back the covers, gets out of bed, and stands on the centre of the rug, glorious in the sunlight that streams in through our dormer window. 'Come on, Peter, let's go out! It's far too nice to stay in here all day.'

'Coming, love.'

I extend my right arm and Jane pulls me up and out of the bed, letting my weight rest against her in the way that we have learned. 'Hey,' I say, 'let's go on the river.'

'Yes,' Jane replies. 'I'd like that.'

We put our things on and I pick up my crutch and Jane supports me as we make our way slowly down the stairs to the main landing of the house; and from there to the ground floor, and the street entrance, and Shoe Lane. From there we board an autobus which carries us down to the banks of the Isis, where the hire-boats are drawn up ready and waiting for us. We will take a punt out today, I think, and maybe the current will lift us, and carry us downstream forever, under the sun and the flying clouds and the dancing, swaying willow trees.

Behind us, in our room, the Sony plays on, in an endless loop of sound:

_There's no love-song finer,  
But how strange the change,  
From major to minor,  
Ev'ry time we say,  
Goodbye._

Cole Porter's _Every Time We Say Goodbye_ is quoted without permission.


	25. Afterword

**Afterword**

First; thank you for reading this far. As of this date, _Time and Peter Joyce_ is the longest _His Dark Materials_ fic on this site. I never expected it to turn out to be so long, but a story has its own needs and imperatives and it is the duty of the writer to do what his characters tell him to do. I appreciate that this story has reflected my own interests and concerns far more than those of the typical _His Dark Materials_ reader and that, the appearance of Lyra and Gracious Wings apart, it has very little in common with _HDM_ apart from being set in (some of) the same worlds.

_Geography_

Ah yes, Lyra's world. If you have read the other stories which feature Peter Joyce and Lyra's Oxford, _The Clockmaker's Boy_ and _A Gift of Love_, you may be a little puzzled by an apparent shift in geography. In the earlier stories, one end of Shoe Lane - the Talbot Inn end - connected with the High Street. In this one, it comes out in Cornmarket Street. What's going on?

The answer is simple, and nothing to do with Peter Joyce's feelings of dislocation. When I wrote the earlier tales, I invented Shoe Lane and named it after the Shoe Lane which is near Fleet Street, in London. It suited me to locate it on the south side of Oxford's High Street, more or less opposite the Covered Market. Then, when I was writing _Dearer Than Eyesight_ I needed to get the narrator from Bodley's Libary to Jericho so I got hold of a street map of Oxford so that I could plot his course accurately. To my horror, I discovered that Oxford already has a Shoe Lane, behind the Clarendon Centre (a shopping mall of quite astounding hideousness).

Faced with the choice between perpetuating my previous error, or moving Shoe Lane (and maybe fixing the earlier stories at some time in the future) I chose geographical exactitude. Of course, if I ever do get round to repairing _TCB_ and _AGoL_ all this will be perfectly meaningless to you :).

_Tall Stories_

At the beginning of chapter twenty of this yarn, Peter found himself briefly inhabiting a number of fictional worlds. Some of them were more obscure than others. Here is the complete list:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - JK Rowling  
The Return of the King - JRR Tolkien  
The Last Battle - CS Lewis  
The City and the Stars - Arthur C Clarke  
Beyond The Fields We Know - Peter Kendell  
The Shadow of the Torturer - Gene Wolfe

Well done if you identified all of them!

_Other Worlds_

The inter-world cultural cross-pollination that was caused by John Parry's gifts to Peter Joyce continued to have an effect in Lyra's world, as shown in some of my other stories; specifically _Dearer Than Eyesight_ and _His Day's Work_. You can track them down most easily by visiting my sitelet at While you are there, you might like to check out the other story that Peter Joyce read in his little brown book - _The Man and His Gods_.

_There's More_

This is not the end of Peter Joyce's story. He reappears in _The Clockmaker's Girl_, also on this site.

_A Debt of Gratitude_

Last, but emphatically not least, I would like to thank Enitharmon for the generous support and guidance she gave me throughout the writing of this tale. All the blunders are still my fault, though.


End file.
